YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Brad Gosser is pretty enthusiastic about the prospects for Greenville-Reynolds Development Corp.’s latest project.
Work is nearly complete on preparing more than half of the 32-acre site formerly occupied by Damascus Steel, a project that has been years in the making. A 17-acre section on the north side of Reynolds Industrial Park will be pad ready by mid-June, Greenville-Reynolds’ executive director and vice president, predicts.
“The pad is in place, ready to be built on, and the permits are done,” he reports. A stormwater management system already is in place, along with necessary permittings.
The property, located near Greenville, Pa., is among several properties that industrial park operators in the region are preparing for potential development.
Greenville-Reynolds
Greenville-Reynolds has put about $2.4 million into the 32-acre site, including about $1.5 million to prepare the property, perform engineering and securing permits, on top of the purchase of the land for $325,000. The asking price is $1.5 million for the 17-acre property, he says.
The site is built to accommodate a building of up to 63,000 square feet, Gosser says. Having the infrastructure in place, permits secured and the site ready to build on could save a developer two to three years.
“It’s a site ready to be built on immediately,” he says. “A lot of times, people have a short time frame to get a building up. This is a perfect scenario where people can jump in, and as quickly as it can be built, it can be up and running,” he says.
Niles Business Park
Work is completed at the new Federal Street Business Park in Niles, Jason Altobelli of FSBP Corp. reports. FSBP purchased the former General Electric Mahoning Glass Plant in 2021 and demolished much of the plant building.
“All the infrastructure is in and done,” he says.
He now is waiting for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to finalize its “no further action” letter, a development he had hoped would have taken place six months ago but anticipates in the next 30 days.
“We’ve had a lot of calls. We just can’t really make any moves until we have that,” he says. His company has been working with Lake to River Economic Development, which has been sending inquiries to him.
In the meantime, his company established a tax increment financing – or TIF – agreement with the city of Niles, he says. Once he receives the NFA letter, he will look at flattening the parcels and potentially building a spec building at the site later this year or early next year, though how large of a structure has yet to be determined.
“We’re trying to ascertain where the market is at,” he says. “We were thinking from 5,000 to 10,000 [square feet], nothing outrageously big,”
Youngstown
In the city of Youngstown, officials also are looking at repurposing property for industrial/business park use. More than 30 years ago, the city repurposed former steel mill property as three industrial parks: Salt Springs Road Industrial Park, Ohio Works Industrial Park and Performance Place. Tenants of those parks include Trivium Packaging and Brentwood Originals.
The city continues to reap the benefits of past administrations, which had “the foresight to prepare that land when it was just gravel and trees and slag,” DeMaine Kitchen, director of Youngstown’s department of community planning and economic development, says.
At Salt Springs, the city is seeking the approval of city council to prepare 12 acres of land at Exal Court for development by Top Property Holdings, the developer of North Jackson Commerce Park. Top Property earlier this year welcomed Shapes Unlimited to the spec building it constructed there.
“If we can get council support and cooperation on it, I think that could be a really good site,” he remarks. “We’re looking to build up to 200,000 square feet of light industrial space and we’re pretty confident that we can attract manufactures and duplicate that success that they had in North Jackson.”
The city also needs to look more toward attracting businesses in the technology, defense and aerospace sectors, and work to retain companies working with the Youngstown Innovation Hub for Aerospace and Defense, he says.
“We need to be looking at the next wave of industry and jobs and things of that nature, and we need to be forward thinking in how we repurpose and prepare a lot of this land,” he says. “We’ve seen how a lot of jobs have been eliminated over the years because of technology. I don’t know what that next technology is going to look like and how it’s going to impact this, but it would be nice to have a place where we’re on the forefront, where we have technology parks and utilize our land for those type of forward-thinking investments.”
Other potential sites for industrial park-type developments include the former Chill-Can campus and the Crab Creek corridor, as well as some Youngstown City School District properties.The city is waiting for an announcement from the state regarding whether it will provide funds to connect Albert Street to the freeway system.
West Warren Industrial Park
The initial 98,000-square-foot building is complete at West Warren Industrial Park, which is being developed by West Warren Development LLC on Nevada Avenue in Warren. West Warren Development is a limited liability company owned by Sapientia Ventures, which also owns The Business Journal.
“There are definitely prospects for it,” Chuck George, managing partner for Sapientia Ventures, reports. Leasing has been held up by completion of the park’s pump house, which should be online by early June.
West Warren already has preliminary drawings for a second building, an 80,000-square-foot structure that could be divided into two 40,000-square-foot spaces for two tenants, which seems to be where more of the interest is leaning, George says.
Castlo Industrial Park
Castlo Community Improvement Corp., which operates Castlo Industrial Park in Struthers, recently was awarded a $350,000 Roadwork Development Grant to fund improvements to Industrial Park Road. The $537,440 project, which will cover about 4,000 linear feet, will include resurfacing, guardrail and drainage work, Randy Partika, a Castlo CIC board member, says.
The roadwork is intended to accommodate expansion by Castlo tenants. Increased activity by Lindy Paving, which purchased 43 acres at the park, is projected to result in a fivefold increase in heavy truck traffic and an additional 60 jobs, according to a May 19 news release. Another major tenant, Industrial Piping Specialists, bought an additional seven acres for its expansion needs.
“They’ve always identified themselves as the plumbing store for the oil and gas industry,” with a focus on selling valves and connections, Partika says.
Pictured at top: Brad Gosser, executive director and vice president of Greenville-Reynolds Development Corp., in front of former Damascus Steel property, which is being prepared for future use at Reynolds Industrial Park.
