Corporate executives of the former Great Lakes Chemical Corp. have left their offices in Indianap... Chemtura dims the lights..

Corporate executives of the former Great Lakes Chemical Corp. have left their offices in Indianapolis in the aftermath of a $2 billion merger with rival Crompton Corp.

Great Lakes' office at 9025 N. River Road in Indianapolis is in the process of being closed, with most of the estimated 75 jobs transferred to corporate headquarters in Middlebury, Conn. That's where the result of the Great Lakes-Crompton merger -- Chemtura Corp. -- will be based.

And the West Lafayette Great Lakes site, which a decade ago employed up to 400 people, has seen the staff trimmed to 175, including 65 employees working in research and development. That number will fall even farther, Chemtura officials say.

"We expect the total number of employees to drop to about 150 over the next six months" at the West Lafayette facility, said Anne Noonan, vice president of Chemtura's West Lafayette-based flame retardants business. "Affected employees already have been informed."

The exodus is leaving in doubt the role that the former Great Lakes headquarters on U.S. 52 might play for Chemtura -- and for Greater Lafayette's economy.

With roots dating to the 1930s, Great Lakes rose from near obscurity after moving operations from Michigan to property at the northwest edge of West Lafayette to become a billion-dollar giant in the specialty chemicals industry. That climb to a Fortune 500 company was led by the late Emerson Kampen.

Retired Great Lakes executive Lowell Horwedel said the company's problems started during the 1990s, when several executives with strong local ties to the company retired.

"It's just terrible what's happening," the Otterbein resident said of the many jobs moving to Connecticut and the likelihood that the former headquarters will be sold.

Employees at the former Great Lakes headquarters, a unique, trihedral-shaped building, are involved in research and development of the company's key product lines, which include flame retardants, water treatments for swimming pools and petroleum additives.

Chemtura confirmed that it is trying to find a buyer for the West Lafayette building. The city and Purdue University officials are wondering what local use the building might provide if Chemtura vacates it.

"The building is very unusual because it's shaped like a spaceship," said Josh Andrew, the city of West Lafayette's redevelopment director. He confirmed that Chemtura has talked with city officials about whether the city would have an interest in the building.

"I'm not sure if we would take it even if they gave it to us, though, because it's a big building," Andrew said. "And we would still have to pay to heat it and maintain it."

When the merger with Crompton was announced March 9, Great Lakes officials said they were optimistic that the key role played by the 300-employee facility in West Lafayette would help preserve most, if not all, of those local jobs.

Andrew said he's no longer optimistic the merger will benefit West Lafayette in the long term. Joe Hornett, chief operating officer for the Purdue Research Foundation, and Dana Smith, president of the Lafayette-West Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, agreed.

"The building is being actively marketed now," Smith said, "and there's not going to be any new jobs coming" to Tippecanoe County as a result of the merger.

Those talks, he said, focused on what this community could offer the specialty chemicals company if it desired to grow its operations and use its base here for expanding in Indiana.

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