BUSINESSMAN OFFERS TO BUY PACOIMA PLANT : PRICE PFISTER JOBS COULD RETURN.

Byline: Stacy Finz Daily News Staff Writer

On the same day Price Pfister shut down its 26-year-old foundry, a Los Angeles businessman offered to purchase the Pacoima facility and possibly rehire workers who have been laid off over the past year.

Lewis Williams, chief operating officer of ArcWil Financial Holdings of Los Angeles, sent a proposal to the faucet manufacturer and to City Councilman Richard Alarcon's office Friday, laying out a plan to buy the 94,000-square-foot foundry and its equipment.

``The proposal doesn't get into great detail into what they want to do with the space,'' said Alarcon, who along with several other politicians has been assisting in finding an investor to take over the plant. ``It's at the very beginning stages.''

Alarcon would not release the dollar amount offered for the foundry, and officials with Price Pfister and its parent company, Black & Decker, were not available for comment.

Alarcon said that he attempted to contact the Pacoima company three times Friday, but officials there did not return his calls. He said the company has not even confirmed that it is willing to sell the facility.

The councilman, whose district contains Price Pfister, which up until a year ago employed about 1,400 people, has been working to settle labor strife at the plant.

Price Pfister closed its foundry, the largest west of the Mississippi, on Friday because it used an outdated casting technique that was damaging to the environment.

In January, the faucet manufacturer agreed to pay $2.4 million and remove the lead from its products within four years to settle a 3-year-old lawsuit, according to the state Attorney General's Office. It was forced to change its manufacturing method from sand-casting to a more costly but cleaner machine process.

The plant is also moving its assembly operation to Mexico. As a result, about 70 foundry workers and more than 200 assembly-line employees have been laid off.

Alarcon said Williams' proposal calls for the rehiring of many of those workers.

``He is very interested in using the existing people because they know the equipment,'' he said.

In December, Alarcon and other city, county and state officials sent information about the Pacoima facility to 300 foundry owners throughout the world in hopes of attracting a buyer and preserving jobs.

Williams, who has been inquiring about the Price Pfister foundry for several months, formerly managed and owned similar operations in Chicago.