By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

LAMAR, Mo. — O’Sullivan Industries has terminated the deal with a California company to buy its empty 1.2-million-square-foot plant in Lamar, raising questions about the ability of another company to bring 475 jobs to town.

According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of the Western District of Missouri, O’Sullivan Industries has terminated the purchase agreement to sell its building in Lamar to Structured Equity Advisors, a Newport Beach, Calif., investment company for $4 million.

O’Sullivan and SEA signed the purchase agreement last August. SEA was then supposed to lease part of the building to Polymer-Wood Technologies, a Dallas, Texas-based door manufacturer. Polymer-Wood was supposed to create 475 new jobs in Lamar, saying that it would pay an average annual salary of $41,000.

Despite the severed deal on the building, Evan Daniels, president and chief executive officer of Polymer-Wood, insisted Friday that he remains committed to establishing a door-manufacturing operation in Lamar, but he would not say how or when.

“We are planning to come to Lamar, we have always wanted to come to Lamar,” Daniels said by phone Friday. “We love this community.”

He said he was confident that the end of the plant deal would not keep his company from making a move to Lamar, that another way would be found.

He would not comment Friday on the O’Sullivan-SEA lawsuit.

Robert Duncan, SEA manager, refused to provide contact information to the Globe last year when the deal was originally signed, so he could not be reached for comment Friday, and several attempts to reach O’Sullivan officials in Lamar on Friday were unsuccessful.

O’Sullivan is alleging the deal fell apart because SEA dragged its feet in closing the real-estate purchase. And now O’Sullivan wants SEA to turn over the $1.5 million in “earnest” money the purchase agreement says belongs to O’Sullivan if the deal fell through, and SEA was to blame. The lawsuit asks the court to make SEA turn over the earnest money, along with interest and attorney fees incurred in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit has caused confusion at Lamar City Hall. City Administrator Lynn Calton said he knew about the lawsuit, but had not heard anything about the deal not going forward.

The lawsuit, Calton said, lists Wachovia Bank as holding the deed of the O’Sullivan plant building at 1900 Gulf St., but O’Sullivan is referred to as “the seller” in the purchase agreement.

“We’ve not gotten any word from anybody,” Calton said. “To my knowledge, it’s still on. We’re waiting on SEA and Wachovia to close the deal.”

SEA had from Aug. 9 to Oct. 8 to inspect the building and “determine those factors, if any, that will increase the development costs of the property.” After that, the earnest money would go to O’Sullivan. The closing date was originally scheduled for Oct. 18. SEA allegedly asked for more time, the inspection period was extended and a new closing date of Dec. 19 set. SEA asked for another extension, and a new date of Jan. 31 set.