'Big Basket' Roadside Attraction/Office Building Remains on Market: Update

The former Longaberger office building — that giant basket in the photo here — is still on the market. No one wants to buy it, quite possibly because it's a giant basket. 

“There’s nothing baskety inside,” the listing agent told Bloomberg. “Nothing makes you feel like it’s in a basket. You feel like you’re in a nice, high-rise office building.”

Meantime, some advice: Don't go staffing the joint with "deplorables" if you plan on moving your company HQ to the giant basket. 

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July 13 update:

This is it, everybody. Employees at The Longaberger Co.'s basket-shaped headquarters will have all moved on to a new location by the end of the week. The company owes $577,660 in back taxes on the giant basket, and Longaberger top brass has decided to consolidate its staff in Muskingum County.

But what of the basket?

No one knows, but minimum bids for the joint could clock in around a cool $600,000, according to Licking County Auditor Mike Smith (see below).

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Original story published April 1:

The iconic giant basket in Newark, Ohio — home to The Longaberger Co. headquarters — is up against an uncertain fate as all remaining staff are being sent to the company's nearby manufacturing plant. (It probably goes without saying, but the Longaberger Co. makes baskets.)

With distressing tax issues confronting the company's books and a top-down desire to get everyone "under one roof," the Big Basket is about to be very empty. The building faces a potential foreclosure. 

From the Columbus Dispatch:

The company is behind on its taxes, and if delinquent taxes aren't paid, the county has the power to foreclose on the property and offer it at a sheriff's sale, Licking County Auditor Mike Smith said.

"At this point, the minimum bid would be $570,000 plus court costs," Smith said. "So you could own the Big Basket for less than $600,000."

If no one wants it at the sheriff's sale price, the property would go to Licking County's recently established land bank.

The iconic seven-story, 180,000-square-foot headquarters building opened in 1997, when the Newark basketmaker was approaching its glory days. Sales peaked at $1 billion in 2000, and in the same year, the company had its largest workforce, more than 8,000.

"So you could own the Big Basket for less than $600,000."