Gastonia, N.C.-based Parkdale Mills, one of the largest yarn manufacturers in the world, has had its sights set on the Wellstone Mills plant in Gaffney.

“We’d like to,” said Anderson Warlick, president and chief executive officer of Parkdale Mills, when asked if his firm was interested in buying the local textile plant.

Warlick could not say, however, if the deal will go through. A recent lawsuit against Wellstone Mills by an Ohio firm that alleges Wellstone reneged on a deal to sell the plant to it, has complicated the situation.

“If we buy it, we’re going to create jobs and invest,” Warlick said. “If we end up getting the plant, we’d like to change the technology to state-ofthe art high technology.”

At this point, however, Warlick said, “We don’t have a deal.” Asked if the deal was dead, he responded, “At this point, I have no idea.”

The situation clouds the future of Wellstone Mills in Gaffney. The Greenville-based parent company has not responded to several telephone calls the last few weeks.

One employee who was let go said the Gaffney plant has not been in operation since the first of the month and line workers simply were told there was no work scheduled.

Hope remains that the Parkdale Mills deal goes through. The employee said he was told, “They want to start it up as soon as possible and start it up with the current workforce Wellstone has.”

Warlick noted there were 155 people looking for work at the plant.

Parkdale Mills has announced several big changes in recent months.

Last September, for instance, it reached an agreement to take over operation at three Hanesbrands plants in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. In return, Hanesbrands planned $1.6 billion in sales from Parkdale Mills, according to published reports in the Gaston Gazette and the textile trade publication Textile World.

And last month, according to Textile World, Parkdale Mills announced plans to invest $3 million in its Edgefield, S.C., plant by adding new equipment to increase capacity.

Last month, a company called Bridgeport Properties LLC, which is a subsidiary of Ohio-based Weston Inc., filed suit in Cherokee County Court of Common Pleas against Greenville-based Wellstone Mills, alleging Wellstone breached an agreement to sell the Gaffney plant property to Bridgeport Properties.

According to contract terms outlined in the lawsuit, Wellstone was going to sell the plant and its 69.57-acre parcel in Gaffney to Bridgeport for $6.8 million.

In return, Wellstone would lease back from Bridgeport approximately 200,000 to 220,000 square feet of plant space for a period of 10 years at an agreed-upon rental price.

The sale/lease back agreement was executed in October 2009, according to the lawsuit, and Bridgeport allegedly set out to attract additional tenants for the massive commercial property. The lawsuit claims Weston Inc. subsequently reached a deal for Saati Americas Corporation, the New York-based headquarters of an Italian textile and chemical company with locations around the globe, to start up new operations in the unused portion of Wellstone’s Gaffney plant.

The lawsuit indirectly outed Saati Americas Corp. as “Project Como,” an economic development project that recently was considered by Cherokee County Council for tax incentives. “Project Como” was to create 35 to 50 new jobs.

The lawsuit against Wellstone alleged that despite the sale/lease back agreement, Wellstone was negotiating with third parties to sell its assets and that it represented to Bridgeport it didn’t intend to go forward with Bridgeport’s deal.