The General Tire & Rubber Co. in Waco announced it was closing in 1985, devastating a community that could point with pride to an industrial powerhouse that employed 1,400 people and had a $42 million payroll.

Now the plant is poised to energize the community again, as a partnership led by Baylor University begins development of a 300,000-square-foot research and technology center in what once was General Tire’s main building.

Waco-based economist Ray Perryman said it has the potential to eventually create thousands of jobs.

General Tire, based in Akron, Ohio, began building the facility in 1944 with federal financing to meet the military’s demand. The plant originally made military tires, large rubber rafts and rubber barrage balloons for World War II. A powerful union, United Rubber Workers Local 312, came too.

In a double dose of good news for Waco in 1944, the Owens-Illinois glass plant opened, as well, giving Central Texas two new companies paying union wages.

“What was the best thing about working there? The pay,” said Burney Mullens, now 80, who worked at General Tire from 1956 to 1984. He said he left a job that paid him $80 every two weeks to one at the tire plant that paid him more than $100 his first week. At those wages, he didn’t mind the heat that had him working in drenched clothes.

But things changed in 1985. A company that had fed, clothed and provided the better things in life for thousands of people during four decades announced it was bowing to market pressure and closing. Global competition in the tire industry and the rise of radial tires put the squeeze on the plant, which made bias-ply tires.

Waco reeled as those with jobs there slipped away during the shut-down period.

Baylor University economist Tom Kelly said about a third accepted early retirement, a third moved away from Waco, and a third found jobs in the local area.

Real estate agent Bland Cromwell remembers listing the building for sale.

“When we put it on the market in 1988, it was the largest plant available in the country,” Cromwell said.

Little happened until 1995, when Clifton Robinson and his family joined Cromwell in buying the building as an investment. Cromwell said he could not quote an exact sales price because the transaction included “lease-back” provisions that allowed General Tire to store tires in warehouse space there.

The Robinson family found other lessees until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “which knocked the props out from under the distribution business,” Cromwell said. “We floated along, not doing much, until we landed Cat.”

Caterpillar Logistics, part of the giant Caterpillar earth-moving company, signed a deal in 2007 to take nearly half the General Tire complex, 975,000 square feet, for the storage of work tools and attachments.

Other space has been taken up by Clarke Products, which makes shower stalls, “and there are farm-type tires being warehoused in 200,000 square feet. They never left,” Cromwell said.

General Tire’s former main building, where refurbishing will begin in early 2010, will have a new use: the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative. Robinson and Cromwell are donating the building to Baylor. Nearly $30 million will be spent to overhaul the structure and make it usable for cutting-edge research.