By John Eckberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

AMBERLEY VILLAGE - The former Gibson Greeting Card plant is back in use.

While employment is far less than when workers created cards here, a new company has hired about 200 people, and income taxes are again flowing to the village.

Three years ago, the old greeting card plant was little more than a 593,000-square-foot shell.

American Greeting Cards had bought Gibson a year before, then management pulled the company out of Greater Cincinnati altogether.

The move left hundreds of executives and card design, production and distribution employees without work and the village income tax ledger with a big hole.

Now, while the payroll has declined by about 750 jobs, the former greeting card plant is again a hub of activity for Saturday Knight Ltd., a bathroom products design and manufacturing company that moved into the building 14 months ago.

"When this was a manufacturing building, it generated a lot more jobs," acknowledged Frank Kling, 57, chief executive and president of Saturday Knight.

"We're mainly distribution. Where they had people, we have inventory."

At its greeting card production peak, more than 1,000 workers or executives came to the sprawling plant to work.

They pumped $1 million to $1.4 million in annual earnings taxes into village coffers while creating millions of greetings cards for consumers worldwide.

Amberley Village leaders may lament the job loss, but these days many village leaders believe a quarter-loaf of bread is better than no loaf at all.

"Yes, it's a step down, but we were very pleased to have them come in," said Bernard Boraten, village manager.

Saturday Knight manufactures and distributes products such as soap dishes, shower curtains and tissue dispensers to almost all major U.S. retailers and controls about 80 percent of the building.

Though the building is not ideal for a distribution company - ceilings are too low and interstate access is a challenge - Kling said his company is making it work.

The size of the plant allowed him to consolidate three other locations: Norwood, Queensgate and Bond Hill.

Mel Schear, CPA, stock analyst at Schear & Schear in Blue Ash and chairman of the Amberley Village Finance Committee, said the village was staggered by the loss of Gibson.

"We took a significant hit," he said. "It created a budget deficit. Having new tenants helped ease that to some degree; so to that extent, they are very welcome."

A good deal of office space in the building - more than 100,000 square feet - remains vacant.

Nor has Amberley Village recovered financially from the loss of jobs at the former Gibson plant, Boraten said. The Gibson departure cost the village between $400,000 and $700,000 in lost taxes and fees.

The building is owned by New York City-based W.P. Carey, which leases the buildings and grounds to American Greetings. American Greetings then leases 475,000 square feet to Saturday Knight.

Almost nine years are left on the lease to Saturday Knight, but the company has no plans to expand into the remaining space because most of it is offices.

Since its inception in 1973, W.P. Carey's business has been sale-leaseback transactions - that is, it buys real estate from companies and leases it back to them.

W.P. Carey has $3.5 billion in equity and approximately $6 billion in assets, according to the company Web site. A spokesman for the company did not respond to an interview request on what efforts are under way to lease the remaining space.

Longtime resident Edward Hattenbach, principal at Hattenbach CPA, sees opportunity in the empty offices.

"We've got to attract development in areas zoned commercial," he said.

"Sometimes a company moves out and you can have an enhancement, as much if not more tax revenue, as higher salaries replace wages paid for manual labor."

Company at a glance

What: Saturday Night Ltd.

Where: Former Gibson Greeting Card plant, 2100 Section Road, Amberley Village

Products: Supplier of shower curtains, fixtures, ornaments, decorative and functional items like soap dishes to Target, Federated Department Stores, Dillard's and other major U.S. retailers.

Employment: About 200 workers who assemble and inventory a variety of products.

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E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com