In the 1920s Westinghouse Electric Corporation was the largest employer in Mansfield, Ohio and to this day the neighborhood that surrounds the former plant bears the name of the high tech company of yore. At that time electricity and all the wonderful inventions that could be powered by it were the cutting edge of innovation and technology.
Westinghouse was a world leader. Factory employees often lived within walking distance or took the trolley to work. Surrounding the factories were homes and apartments, shops, restaurants and breweries, and even arts and entertainment.
Today the Westinghouse District continues to be a home to technology of the future, although one might wonder if George Westinghouse could have anticipated what Dan Madden of Energy Technologies, Inc. (ETI) has created. The Westinghouse district encompasses Park Avenue East to the south, Sixth Street and Orange Street to the north, State Route 430 to the east and Main Street to the west.
Madden worked as an engineer with power systems companies and that led to his founding of ETI in 1991. The first products were power distribution units for U.S. Navy ships, but within a year ETI was making small Uninterruptable Power System (UPS) units.
The ability to respond to demands in the market through innovative engineering has allowed ETI to grow from a two-man operation that made two products to an extensive campus employing 55 people and producing cutting edge technologies including alternative energy solutions such as solar and wind. One of the most remarkable recent products is a solar tent that generates enough power for mobile military and humanitarian efforts.
Jamie Thompson, co-director of Downtown Mansfield, Inc. (DMI), points to ETI as an example of what DMI hopes will be the future of the Westinghouse District. The area is a prime location for technology manufacturing and DMI plans to more actively market the area to businesses like ETI in the future.
When Madden was choosing where to locate his company he considered Southern California and Mansfield. He chose Mansfield for the low cost of living, the surplus of available laborers, and the infrastructure. He acknowledges that Mansfield has some drawbacks though.
When it comes to engineering and technology workers, the talent pool is limited. Madden has had to recruit and relocate talent to Mansfield when skilled professionals weren’t regionally available. His hope is that the efforts of DMI, the Westinghouse District Committee and Braintree will help to increase the number of tech companies in the area.
DMI’s interest in the Westinghouse District isn’t limited to manufacturing. A vibrant community is the sum of its parts, thus housing and quality of life amenities can’t be ignored. This view of the downtown area as a complex ecosystem rather than a business district led to the vitality of the organization that began as Main Street Mansfield in 1998.
Thompson points out that these changes take time and it took the organization seven years to see a visible impact. In the last two years Relax, It’s Just Coffee and Two Cousin’s Pizza opened, both filling voids that were high on the wish lists of community members.
As a phoenix rises up from the ashes, so will a brewery resurrect a mortuary from the dead. The former Charles Schroer Mortuary Building on Diamond Street will have new life as The Phoenix Brewing Company at the end of this year, or beginning of next. Currently under construction the four co-owners are happy to put in the work to restore power, water and modern amenities to a building that some deemed beyond hope.
The brewery will be a welcome complement to the growing nightlife scene that includes Cypress Hill Winery, Karma Night Club, and Martini’s on Main.
And people will be able to burn off some calories at the new Fitness Factory training facility slated to host their grand opening no later than November 1. The business is currently operating as Antonelli’s Personal Training Systems on W. Fourth Street and will expand upon their current offerings in the new space they will occupy directly behind The Carrousel in the former Kitchen Supply building. The expansion to the new location will give members a full locker room as well as personal training, Cross Fit, Outlaw Barbell, dotFIT and more.
The Westinghouse District is growing and adapting to an ever evolving Mansfield with an entrepreneurial spirit at its core.
