MANSFIELD — The ideas flowed from Joe Curry like water from a mountain spring as he walked around inside the former Mansfield Commerce Center earlier this week.
His hands and his thoughts went a mile a minute as he walked just some of the spaces inside the sprawling, five-story former Westinghouse property on the city’s east side.
Co-working spaces here, complete with a workout room for the desk-bound occupants. A large space for a market featuring room for five dozen vendors. An indoor go-kart track with nearby racing displays. Live entertainment. Food trucks. A craft brewery. Luxury apartments. Event center.
And more. Much more. At a pace that is quickening for Curry, who estimates he has invested about $500,000 so far in a project he estimates will take $10 to $15 million before it’s done.
The developer has many plans for the property, located across the street from the former Westinghouse “A” building and the adjoining 13-acre “concrete jungle” that are now destined for demolition and brownfield remediation.
The timing of that massive cleanup of land that has been an eyesore for three decades helped convince Curry the time was right to purchase the nearby property.
The real estate entrepreneur has dreams as large as the 480,000 square feet of space he purchased a few months ago at 246 E. Fourth St. from local businessman/developer/attorney Bud Vetter.
His focus before in central Ohio has been on residential property, single and multi-family. This is Curry’s first stab at a project this size and he is motivated to make it work.
“It’s definitely a bigger project than what I thought it was going to be,” he said. “My friends call me a real estate entrepreneur where I can see something and say, ‘That’s a great business. Let’s try to run with that.’
“So I don’t see things in a standard vision. I kind of assess each project as it comes along. Numbers-wise, financials…does it make sense to do it?
“To me, this is kind of a legacy building. So this is something I knew coming into it would be long-term. What I do now is in a residential market is I buy a property, fix it up and then I don’t have to touch it for 10 years.
“With this, I am doing the complete reverse. So it’s a 10-year project before I don’t have to fix anything,” he said.
Much of the work thus far has involved fixing a roof badly in need of repairs and hauling out about 100 tons of material inside the building.
“It’s just a little bit of everything. We scrapped a lot of metal that was around. Fortunately, there were some old antique washers and dryers that I was able to put away. I need to see what I will do with them long-term.
“I mean, it’s 1940 (era building)…so 80 years of stuff…there’s debris, there’s old equipment that’s non-functioning…there’s old parts and pieces, wood, insulation.
“Anything you can think of…we’ve had fork trucks and dump trucks and trailers hauled out of here,” Curry said.
Why do it here?
Curry said Mansfield and Richland County offered real estate development opportunities that simply don’t exist in Franklin County and central Ohio.
“The market is so saturated with investors (there) that opportunities like this don’t happen. So when I got the opportunity to look at this in a market that I see is growing, with the Westinghouse clean-up planned, it was just prime time for me to look at this and say, ‘This can be a great long-term play for me.’
“I’m in a position where I don’t need to pull money out of this. This is not my only bread maker. So I can make this that legacy building that I talked about,” he said. “I can make this a 10-year long project and just trickle away at it.
“We can make this an attraction point, not only for Mansfield, but all of northern Ohio where people come here to take advantages of the things we will offer here.”
Structurally sound
The frame of the aging building itself amazed Curry, who has a construction background.
“This building is bombproof. They literally do not make buildings like this anymore. I can’t even say what it would cost to make this building today. I would guess $50 million.
“It is steel everything. Concrete everything. As we’re looking at it, these are 24-inch steel i beams. There are 16-inch steel i beams holding up the rest of the structure, floors one through five.
“There is block and concrete. The only steel or wood stud you see is something that was put in after the fact. This is probably the sturdiest building that I have personally ever been in,” Curry said.
He said local elected officials, economic development staffers and financial institutions have been great to work with thus far.
“Everybody I have met with has been open and are excited about what’s going on down here. This has been an ongoing issue for several years and folks want to see some rejuvenation coming down here.
“They’re very open to working with us, seeing what we have. Right now, we’re doing everything cash out of pocket. And we’re looking to source some bigger funding (public and private) so we can take on the project,” Curry said.
A portion of the building is still being used for storage by some local companies, including Edge Plastics, which provides a revenue stream for the redevelopment efforts.
Flexibility matters
With Curry as the sole owner, he has the flexibility and the entrepreneurial spirit to do “whatever makes sense” for the property.
“So if you want to build it, I’ll give you a better price per square foot. If you want me to build it, if you wanna partner on it, do you want to give me a percentage of profits?” he said.
“I’m very flexible to anything that wants to come in. We were just talking to a fiber optic company that’s gonna be laying fiber optics throughout this county and several other surrounding counties in the next couple of years.
“They said, ‘Can we get an office space? Can we get some indoor space? Can we get some outside space for storage?’ I said, ‘We got you covered, buddy. I think we can handle that.'”
Curry has an idea of rebranding the site under the name “Westing House,” keeping its historical legacy alive going forward. That name, like many of the ideas, is still percolating in his active mind.
The daunting size and scope of the undertaking has not slowed him. His plan is to do the work in chunks.
“I enjoy doing this. This is not work for me. I am always checking with the guys. I am constantly networking, trying to get things done. It’s fun,” he said.
“I do have other projects going on. I am here two days a week, but I have a crew working here full time. I have good people working on this.
“I look forward to building out the development, the relationships and what we can bring to the community. I think it’s going to be great.”
The market space at the former Mansfield Commerce Center opens Friday, May 6, on the east end of the building in a space with freshly poured concrete and rewired electric.
It will be open each Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A food truck is also planned at the site on Fridays from 5 to 9 p.m.
