Overview: Future of Mansfield's former Westinghouse site?
Leaders from around Mansfield and Richland County are looking at sites where economic redevelopment has been birthed at former industrial sites. One recent visit was to Newark Station in nearby Licking County.
MANSFIELD — It was a former decaying industrial site near the city’s downtown, last used by Westinghouse until the company closed its doors three decades ago.
Sound familiar, Mansfield?
Today, in the county seat of Licking County (population 181,359), it’s a burgeoning mixed-use new development with apartments, restaurants, space for art and retail and big plans for the future.
It’s Newark Station, 325 W. Main St., one of the places leaders from Mansfield and Richland County are looking at as they consider potential future uses for the local former Westinghouse sites on the city’s east side.
“I was really impressed with the site and what they have done,” said Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry, who visited the site recently as part of a local leadership group.
“Overall, it’s very different from our Westinghouse site in that it still had a viable building on it,” she said. “They have been able to take that building and turn it into quite a bit of things.”
The local people behind the development on the 10-acre site are as crucial as the development itself, according to the mayor.
“My big takeaway was it was a local developer who had a real strong passion in seeing that part of the community revitalized,” said Perry.
The mayor visited the site with Andy McGinty and Amy Hamrick from the Richland County Land Bank; Jennifer Kime from Downtown Mansfield, Inc.; and Jessica Gribben and Barrett Thomas from the Mansfield Area Chamber & Economic Development.
They were also joined by Richland County Commissioner Tony Vero and Mansfield City Council 5th Ward representative Aurelio Diaz, whose ward includes the Mansfield site on East Fifth Street.
(Below is a video interview with Newark developer Todd Alexander done by WSYX-TV in March 2023.)
Though the re-development of Newark Station has been a public-private partnership, including the Licking County Land Bank, clearly one private entrepreneur has been the driving force.
“When I retired, I started looking for opportunities and I just felt the spirit move me here. This project could change the face of this side of town,” Newark Station owner and founder Todd Alexander told WSYX-TV in Columbus in March 2023.
“Something that is local, something that is community-based but something that can be a regional draw as well,” he said, clearly hoping the rising tide of Intel and Amazon locating nearby would raise all boats.
The Newark Station website offers a simple, all-caps explanation for what is going on there:
BUILT IN 1943.
RE-ENVISIONED 2020.
It has a coffee shop that becomes a full-service bar at night. It has apartments that are largely filled with plans to build more. It has an outdoor plaza, featuring sand volleyball courts, food & bar and fire pit.
According to a story published on the Explore Licking County website, Alexander is no stranger to real estate development.
“A native of Pittsburgh, he attended Ohio State University to obtain a degree in engineering. He spent more than three decades at the Columbus-based Continental Building Company, serving as president for 24 years and overseeing the development of sites such as Columbus’s Lennox Town Center,” according to the article.
Alexander has chosen to put millions of his own dollars where his mouth is. According to the piece at Explore Licking County’s website:
He isn’t in it to flip a decrepit warehouse property and make a buck. He’s investing in Licking County because, as a resident, he wants to see it succeed.
“For 34 years, I left Licking County and drove west in the morning. When I left and semi-retired, I was like, ‘I want to wake up in the morning and head east. I want to be in my community and I want to do something to improve it. I want to do something to make it better.’ I wasn’t just looking to flip a buck, and obviously I’ve got to make a dollar, but I wanted to do something that would be meaningful and significant to the community that could help turn the west side of Newark around and give people hope and opportunity and jobs in a unique place.”
The first structure on the property was a wooden A-framed building occupied by Simpson Soap Company. Simpson chose the location due to the proximity of the Ohio canal, which ran through the site, and was used in the production of soap.
In 1910, Simpson Soap Company was replaced by Pharis Tire & Rubber as the canal was replaced with railroad line. In 1943, the U.S. Government commissioned the 120,000-square foot warehouse that remains on the property in an effort to increase rubber production during the war.
In 1948, Pharis closed shop and the property was acquired by Westinghouse Electric Company, furnishing parts for White-Westinghouse appliances — like the ones built in Mansfield.
According to Newark Advocate archives, Consolidated Industries, the parent company of White-Westinghouse, announced in June 1985 plans to close the plant. It closed in October 1988 after nearly four decades in business.
Two years later, Westinghouse shuttered its site in Mansfield as well. The site sat idle for 30 years, a deteriorating “A” building and its 13-acre “concrete jungle” offering a constant reminder of “rust belt” where the city’s largest employer was operated.
The effort in Licking County, about an hour south of Mansfield, is a few years into its four-phased redevelopment.
The site in Mansfield is still being demolished and cleaned up and any future redevelopment is still likely at least a year away. In fact, additional testing by the Ohio EPA needs to be done before potential future uses, including residential buildings, are determined.
Until then, it remains property of the Richland County Land Bank, which has overseen the demolition project since it began in December 2022. Now estimated with a $6 million price tag, the effort has been done with a mix of state grant funds and American Rescue Plan Act dollars from Richland County and the City of Mansfield.
“Obviously we were seeing a little bit further into the project. So it looks nice now, but it was gated off and empty for a long time,” Perry said.
Vero, who helped spark the local demolition and cleanup of Westinghouse in Mansfield, in August of 2021, also came away impressed from the visit.
“The development started as a beach volleyball space and a high-end food truck and has since morphed into a café with a stage, 18 lofts (and) apartments — 17 for lease throughout the year and one Airbnb,” Vero said. “The apartments are completely rented. They’re gorgeous and the Airbnb is reserved frequently.”
The county commissioner said there are some differences between the former Westinghouse sites in Mansfield and Newark.
“There was a building that was left over that was in really good shape and conducive to an event center, which was different than our ‘A’ building that was six stories high and falling apart,” he said.
“An advantage on our site is we sort of have a blank slate and we’re closer to downtown,” he said.
Diaz said he was impressed by what he saw in Newark.
“I didn’t expect to see the development that they’ve done down there. I’ve actually heard about Newark Station, but you have to be there in person to see how amazing it is,” the local lawmaker said.
“I also didn’t realize the connection with Westinghouse before we went,” Diaz said.
Though mixed-use development seems to be on everyone’s minds for the Mansfield site, officials say those minds must also remain open, especially until all environmental testing is complete and the former Westinghouse site is rated for potential re-development.
“I think mixed use seems to be the trend and the way to go out there with some living, some cafés and some microbreweries and maybe a space for arts, and it seems to make good sense for the for the site,” Vero said.
“But I don’t want to pigeonhole us and say that’s what we want,” Vero said. “Who knows? A private developer comes in and has other ideas that will work, then we’ll look at that.”
Perry echoed those same thoughts on mixed-used development.
“That’s the most common thing we’ve heard from people and that would be what my vision for it would be, too,” the mayor said.
“I think that helps it to start to create a district feel,” adding that “all our eggs” can’t be put into one basket.
“There’s a lot of questions still. It has to get cleaned up to certain standards to be able to support residential. That’s what we are aiming for though,” she said.
