TUPPER LAKE -- Jarden Plastics Solutions closed three weeks ago, leaving 68 people without jobs -- but now the building is reportedly being eyed by a major retailer.

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The vacant, clay-colored plant with an industrial smokestack takes up 15 acres of a center stretch between hamlets on two sides of Tupper Lake.

It is the site along Route 3 where Oval Wood Dish Co. once made bowling pins and wooden spoons, across the road from sparkling, mountain-framed Racquette Pond.

DEVELOPER INTERESTED

A deal is in the works to sell Jarden's property to Nigro Companies, an Albany-based developer.

Officials aren't naming who wants to build in Tupper Lake or how much it would cost, but most believe it is a big retail operation.

Located in an Empire Development Zone, the site comes with tax incentives and sales-tax exemptions, said Paul Maroun, Franklin County legislator from Tupper Lake, who indicated that discussion -- as he understood it -- has reached the pricing stage.

"The thought is that if you've got 15 or 16 acres, they're not going to put a dollar store there."

Nigro, a kind of retail development middleman, lists 52 clients on its Web site, including Hannaford, Home Depot, Lowe's and Wal-Mart.

WAL-MART RUMORS

The Wal-Mart connection has raised conjecture.

In early May, village trustees and Mayor Mickey Desmarais sent a letter inviting Wal-Mart to consider locating in Tupper Lake, though not necessarily the Jarden site.

Desmarais said the invitation, in part, responded to Jarden's departure.

"It did and didn't. We'd been communicating with Nigro since last summer, when we knew Jarden was heading out."