On Thursday, Jan. 5, at 1 p.m., the City of Urbana Community Development Office and the Champaign Economic Partnership will host a stakeholder meeting with downtown property owners, downtown business owners, and other interested parties. This meeting will be an opportunity to determine the feasibility and interest in applying for CDBG Downtown Revitalization Program funding through the Ohio Development Services Agency. Furthermore, this meeting will be held in the fire training room on the second floor of the Urbana Municipal Building, 205 S. Main St.

This grant program is competitive statewide, and projects funded through the program are designed to improve central business districts through targeted investment in facade improvements, remediation of building code violations and/or investment in streetscapes or other public infrastructure.

At the present time, no specific projects have been identified that could benefit from this program. However, this meeting will be opportunity for all stakeholders to gauge interest in the program and to seek input on the feasibility and suitability of making an application to this program in 2017 or in the future.

Please plan to attend and participate in this forum. If you have any questions or comments, please contact Doug Crabill, community development manager for the City of Urbana, by calling 652-4305, or Marcia Bailey, economic development director of the Champaign Economic Partnership, by calling 653-7200.

​Sincerely,
Doug Crabill
City of Urbana Community Development Manager;
Marcia Bailey
Economic Development Director of the Champaign Economic Partnership

By Casey S. Elliott, Urbana Daily Citizen
celliott@civitasmedia.com
Navistar is seeking a tax abatement to create a new facility on Phoenix Drive which will consolidate operations and bring in new jobs.

On Tuesday, Navistar Inc. and Damewood Enterprises filed a Community Reinvestment Act tax abatement request for a new warehousing facility at 915 Phoenix Drive. The abatement would need to be approved by both Urbana City Council and Urbana City Schools for it to move forward.

The application asks for a 100 percent, 10-year tax abatement for 24 acres on the property, currently classified for agricultural use. The land is currently owned by Damewood Enterprises Limited. Navistar will lease operations on the property out of a new 355,522 square f! oot warehouse facility on the site. The new facility will allow Navistar to consolidate existing operations in Urbana and Xenia as part of a joint venture with General Motors, according to the tax abatement application. The new facility is estimated to cost $12 million to build and will house $16 million in inventory.

An estimated 114 employees will be moved from Navistar’s existing Edgewood Avenue facility in Urbana to the new site. Approximately 27 employees will be moved from the Bellbrook Avenue, Xenia, Ohio, facility, and an estimated 39 full-time employees are predicted to be hired for the new warehouse, according to the application. Current estimated payroll at the Urbana site is $4.954 million; current payroll for the jobs moving to Urbana from Bellbrook is estimated at $1.263 million; and the company anticipates the new employees will have $572,000 in payroll; for a total of $6.789 million in payroll at the new site, according to the application.

Champaign County Economic Development Director Marcia Bailey told the Urbana school board Tuesday the company is looking at other sites for this new facility, so she is hopeful the city and school board will approve the abatement to bring new construction and jobs to Champaign County. Bailey also brought the abatement request to city council for their consideration Tuesday night.

"This is an opportunity for our growth, and not lose this to another community," Bailey told the school board.
Urbana Schools Superintendent Charles Thiel said he thinks this might be good for the commun! ity and the schools.

"In my mind, it makes sense," he said.

City Council is expected to vote on the abatement at its Feb. 21, 2017 meeting. Thiel said the school board will discuss, and potentially take action on, the abatement at its January meeting.

If approved, the project is estimated to begin construction in March 2017 and be completed in December 2017.
Casey S. Elliott may be reached at 937-652-1331 ext. 1772 or on Twitter @UDCElliott.

Two-and-a-half years after the city of Urbana began the process of trying to acquire the former Q3/JMC Inc. property, vacant since 2008 and partially destroyed by a 2015 fire, the Champaign County Board of Revision on Tuesday agreed to hand the 605 Miami St. site over to the city free and clear of delinquent taxes and assessments.

“It’s been a long journey, but I’m glad we are finally moving forward,” said city Director of Administration Kerry Brugger.

To begin the process of transferring the 26 parcels from the county to the city, the Board of Revision unanimously approved an order of transfer. The sheriff will execute the transfer of the deed.

County Assistant Prosecutor Jane Napier said the order of transfer includes a 30-day waiting period, during which an appeal may be filed. If no appeal is made, the sheriff can sign the deed over to the city.

“This is a really good example of a cooperative effort between the city and county entities,” she said.

In order for the city to be given the property free and clear of all taxes and assessments, the Board of Revision also passed a motion ordering the county auditor to wipe away all existing delinquent taxes on the date of transfer for all 26 parcels listed in the order of transfer.

According to county Treasurer Robin Edwards, the current delinquency on the Miami St. property stands at $264,396.24.

While the county has agreed to waive the delinquency, in return, the city has laid out a plan to get the property back into productive use.

In November, Brugger informed City Council and the Board of Revision that a three-party agreement is in the works among the city, a developer who would oversee the property and receive nearly $900,000 in grant funding to clean up the site, and Honeywell, who would be responsible for remediating contaminated groundwater issues on the west side of the property that the company became liable for when it acquired Grimes Aerospace.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Brugger said the three-party agreement has yet to be finalized, but the city is moving forward with the project while the final details are worked out by the developer, whose name will be made public once the deal is finalized.

Downtown Mechanicsburg properties addressed
The village’s desire to acquire four properties – 1 and 5 N. Main St. (side-by-side vacant lots on the corner of North Main and West Sandusky streets), and 2 and 4 N. Main St. (side-by-side vacant buildings at the corner of North Main and East Sandusky streets) – via expedited foreclosure was addressed by the Board of Revision.

The Champaign Economic Partnership website, launched about a year ago, will be updated early next year with more resources to help businesses locate and expand in Champaign County, said CEP Director Marcia Bailey. The CEP was designated Champaign County’s economic development agency in July 2015.

The CEP website, CEPOhio.com, will expand listings of available commercial land and buildings, information on economic development incentives and the CEP’s “playbook,” which is currently in development.

The playbook, expected to be completed early next year, will serve business developers as a resource guide through the process of beginning or expanding a business in Champaign County. The playbook will include information about the local and state resources critical to business success as well as contact information for these resources.

“As the economic development agency serving all of Champaign County, the CEP serves as the starting point for local business development,” Bailey said. “We will offer businesses our economic development playbook as an easy-to-use resource to help smooth the planning process and prevent missing any key steps along the way.”

CEP newsletter published
More details about the CEP playbook and other economic development news can be found in the CEP’s recently published fall newsletter, CEP Developments, the third quarterly edition of the publication, which launched in spring 2016. The newsletter can be accessed on the “news” tab of CEPOhio.com, and. visitors can subscribe to receive the newsletter by email.

Among other news covered in the latest edition: New local businesses; Manufacturing Day activities coordinated by the CEP and local manufacturers and schools to present high school students career opportunities in manufacturing; the CEP’s and local manufacturers’ display at the Champaign County Fair; and the Inventors Camp at the Champaign Family YMCA, where local manufacturers provided campers a taste of manufacturing.

Manufacturing careers have been a key focus of the CEP, as manufacturers locally and across the country are having difficulty filling skilled job openings.

Several workforce training initiatives have resulted from CEP’s partnership with manufacturers and local schools:
Ohio Hi-Point Career Center’s advanced manufacturing program at Triad Local Schools and other Hi-Point satellite programs at Champaign County schools

New manufacturing and engineering programs at Clark State Community College

Urbana University looking at new workforce training opportunities

Development of training to help the existing workforce update skills to remain competitive

Job shadowing, internships and factory tours to expose local students to manufacturing careers

“Workforce initiatives like these are vital to current employers and will help us attract new businesses to Champaign County,” Bailey said. “Businesses are more likely to move to communities with a well-trained workforce.”

Ohio economic development newsletter
Champaign County and the CEP received prominent coverage in the November edition of the Ohio Economic Development Association’s Dateline newsletter. The article featured the continuing growth of the county’s largest employer, KTH Parts Industries, and the CEP’s role in helping KTH gain approval of a Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) application.

The CRA agreement grants KTH a 50 percent, 15-year real estate tax exemption on the company’s latest construction project, a 128,950-square-foot expansion expected to cost $6.7 million. As part of the agreement, KTH also pledges to add 20 new full-time jobs.

​The company has experienced massive growth since opening in 1985. KTH started with 195 full-time associates in a 239,122-square-foot facility and now employs 914 full-time permanent and 223 temporary associates, who make automobile subassemblies in a 1,110,448-square-foot complex.

The details of a proposed enterprise zone agreement involving the future site of a two-story, 30,000-square-foot medical ambulatory care building in the Urbana Commons Planned Unit Development on the east side of Urbana were presented to City Council during its Tuesday meeting.

The measure, introduced in the form of a resolution that underwent a first reading, seeks council’s approval of an enterprise zone agreement involving the city, Urbana MOB LLC (property owner) and Memorial Health of Union County (lessee).

Under the proposed agreement, Urbana MOB would receive a tax exemption of 75 percent for 10 years from the real property taxes resulting from real property improvements to the proposed construction site at the northwest corner of the East U.S. Route 36 and North Dugan Road intersection.

In its joint enterprise zone application to the city, Urbana MOB and Memorial Health estimated the total project investment to be between $9,993,000 and $10,703,000.

“Real estate taxes being paid right now on the agricultural land (proposed construction site) is $217.57 per half year,” said Marcia Bailey, economic development director for the Champaign Economic Partnership. “With this application, the private entity, Urbana MOB, would be responsible for real estate taxes. If it’s under the ownership of the hospital, there is no real estate taxes. Their taxes are exempt.

“So, with this agreement, we would have real estate taxes coming into the county, which we don’t have right at this time,” she added.