To celebrate 10 years of local journalism, Richland Source is revisiting some of its previous coverage and updating the community on the stories we’ve told. In this article, we talked to Mayor Randy Hutchinson and Industrial Commerce Properties to hear an update on the center that we’ve covered in-depth at Ontario City Council meetings and published a solutions story about in 2020.
p.s. Join us this Saturday for SourceFest, a free block party we’re throwing in celebration of a decade in local news. Click here to RSVP.
ONTARIO — General Motors left a 2.5-million-square-foot campus behind when the Ontario stamping plant closed in 2010.
Multiple interested businesses have since toured the property and Charter Next Generation opened a specialty bag production operation in 2021. CNG occupies about 130,000 square feet of the property at 2525 W. 4th St.
Industrial Commercial Properties is leading the effort to develop the rest of the property and bring more jobs to Ontario.
The City of Ontario bought the former GM property from the Brownfield Communities Development Company in 2018 after it was originally managed by RACER Trust and the Adler Group.
ICP later entered a development agreement with the city for six acres of the property and the press prep building in 2020.
Ontario Mayor Randy Hutchinson said the city has maintained the grounds of the industrial park for about five years.
“It was pretty overgrown when we took it over, but we’ve done a lot of mowing and maintenance work since then to keep it looking professional,” Hutchinson said. “We’re not sure when it will have more tenants and jobs, but of course, we’re hoping sooner than later.”
ICP senior vice president of development Jeff Martin told Ontario City Council in October that securing spec building funding and electric service were the largest hurdles the developer still had to overcome.
“We’ve never come into this before with other properties, but the electric substation is sort of useless right now,” Martin said. “The prior developer had deconstructed it, so we don’t have transmission power on the site and we’ll need a huge investment to rebuild it.”
Battery and electronic manufacturers rely on transmission power from substations for higher distribution capability and cheaper utility costs. Martin said estimates from First Energy indicated rebuilding the substation with transformers and switchgear could cost $10 million and might take two years.
“The mayor and city council members are talking with senior senators and some other contacts to see if we can find public funding dollars,” Martin said. “Because 50% of our estimated spec building cost just to provide power is a tough financial pill to swallow.”
A spec building could help future tenants start operation quicker than a new build, though the developer is left to find its own funders. The spec building will be more than 250,000 square feet and construction might require upwards of $20 million in investment.
Martin said ICP has secured a $1 million grant from the Ohio Site Inventory Program and staff are working to expand on it. He said there are two options for the spec building — building on top of the concrete slab or removing it and filling the former GM basements to start fresh.
Removing the concrete slab is preferable because the new build can be customized to what tenants need. Martin said if ICP were to build on top of the slab, they would need to fix columns and supports to the footprints already there.
“I think there’s a bright future ahead for that because we’re looking into Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) grants for site demolition and revitalization,” Martin said. “And we’ll probably have to get some matches on that — there’s no way you could get that done without some kind of public-private partnership.”
Martin said ICP is working with the Richland County Land Bank and the local chamber of commerce to prepare applications for additional grants.
ICP hopes to have the spec building started within a year even if the electrical substation can’t yet be operating at its full capacity.
“As soon as ODOD opens up that application window, we’ll be ready to submit,” he said. “This is an important site for us, so we’re focused on finding a way forward.
“Our brokers are tapped into the businesses that are expanding and looking for opportunities. We don’t really have a target number of companies on the site, we’re just looking for effective use of the site and getting as many good-paying jobs there as possible.”
