Bailey was joined by CEP board members Kyle Hall, president of the Hall Company; Steve Hess, Champaign County commissioner; Evelyn Levino, chief of staff of Urbana University; Ron Salyer, president and chief executive officer of Pioneer Electric Cooperative; and Pat Thackery, Urbana city councilman and owner of Café Paradiso, Carmazzi’s, the Studio and Fine Arts Gallery, and Room 117.
“It’s great to see all the good things happening in Champaign County – the investment and job opportunities. It’s all good,” Jordan said. Navistar Warehouse At the Navistar site, Jordan spoke with Jerry and Brad Damewood of Damewood Enterprises, on whose property the warehouse is being built in the Urbana Industrial Park, at 915 Phoenix Drive. The $12 million facility is expected to be completed by Dec. 1. Navistar will store up to $16 million in inventory in the warehouse to support contracts with General Motors at the Navistar assembly plant between Springfield and Urbana. The facility will retain 114 existing Navistar jobs. In addition, 27 jobs will be transferred from Xenia and 13 new full-time jobs will be created. Schools underway Urbana City Schools Superintendent Charles Thiel led the group through the district’s two building projects, along with representatives of general contractor Gilbane Building Company and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC), which administers the projects. The new schools are being funded 61 percent by state funds and 39 percent local. The 180,000-square-foot pre-K through eighth grade school will have an enrollment of about 1,500 students when it opens in early 2019. Located on South U.S. Route 68, the school property is in the process of being annexed into the city of Urbana. Thiel said that classes will begin in the new Urbana High School, on the site of the current high school on Washington Avenue, in the spring of 2018. Two portions of the existing building will remain after the project is completed: the iconic Castle building and the auditorium/gymnasium building. Funding through OFCC does not pay for auditorium construction, but Thiel said the school’s auditorium underwent an extensive upgrade in 2001. He added that the floor below the auditorium could be used for a manufacturing lab to help with workforce development. The new school, for about 500 students, is designed for flexibility in classroom layout to support project-based learning and use of the latest educational technology. Thiel said the public is invited to tour the high school construction project Friday, Sept. 8, 5-6:30 p.m., before the Urbana-Greenville football game. Urbana hospital preparing for upgrades Mercy Memorial Hospital, founded in 1951, is undergoing more than a name change, to Mercy Health – Urbana Hospital. Jamie Houseman, the hospital’s president, said that Mercy Health, which is Ohio’s largest nonprofit health system, is providing capital funding to: *Upgrade the hospital’s central sterile system to accommodate the addition in 2018 of a da Vinci® robotic surgery system. Houseman said this will expand the range of minimally invasive surgical procedures available locally to Champaign County residents, at Mercy Health – Urbana Hospital. *Open a 10-bed geriatric psychiatric unit in a section of Mercy Health – McAuley Senior Living (formerly Mercy McAuley Center), which adjoins the hospital. The short-term inpatient treatment program is intended for individuals 55 and older. The secured unit will be ready year-end to accept patient referrals from a variety of sources. The program will provide short-term monitoring, medication adjustment and treatment of medically complicated conditions. Due to a lack of such facilities in the area, patients must often be transferred hours away for care, Houseman said. Memorial Health Medical Building Spence Fisher, executive vice president of Memorial Health, spoke with Jordan about Memorial Health’s $9 million 30,000-square-foot outpatient medical building under construction at the northwest corner of East U.S. Route 36 and North Dugan Road. The facility, which will open mid-2018, will retain 16 existing jobs and create 12 new jobs. Memorial Primary Care, now at 900 Scioto St., Urbana, will move to the new facility. The practice, now with four primary care practitioners, will have room to recruit three more in the new location. The medical building also will accommodate rotating medical specialists, urgent care, x-ray imaging, lab testing services, sports medicine, physical and occupational therapy, and a medical therapy clinic, where a clinical pharmacist and nurse practitioner will evaluate and counsel patients with complex, chronic conditions.
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By Katherine Collins - Springfield News-Sun Staff Writer
A $1.3 million project to upgrade a stretch of road on one of the major arteries in Champaign County should improve safety for pedestrians and prevent flooding, Urbana city leaders said. A contractor has been chosen to fill in sidewalk gaps, add streetlights, a crosswalk, storm drains, gutters and curbs on U.S. 36 East between Berwick Drive and South Dugan Road. The project will be funded with grant money from state and federal agencies, Urbana City Engineer Tyler Bumbalough said, as well as matching funds from the city and Urbana Twp. The road is the main east-west highway in Champaign County and gets a lot of commercial traffic, he said, with at least 10,000 cars passing through each day. “The speed limits are 35 out there and it is quick and it’s busy,” Bumbalough said. The stretch of road to be addressed has both the Champaign Family YMCA and Champaign County Public Library, he said — two locations people often want to walk to. Dirt trails have been worn along the road where people have frequently walked. “Pedestrians, I do see them crossing once in a while and they’re risking their lives doing so,” Bumbalough said. “We want to make it more walkable and safer for them.” The YMCA has taken safety precautions because of the lack of sidewalks, Champaign Family YMCA CEO Paul Waldsmith said. “We don’t have children enrolled in programs walking out onto 36 at this point in time,” he said. [Read the full article at SpringfieldNewsSun.com] By Joshua Keeran - Urbana Daily Citizen The Urbana Planning Commission on Monday granted final site plan approval for construction of a 355,319-square-foot warehousing facility in the Urbana Industrial Park on the city’s south side. Limited construction at the Phoenix Drive site began earlier this month after Planning Commission members approved Damewood Enterprises Limited’s preliminary site plan in January. While Damewood Enterprises will own the facility, it will be leased to Navistar to be used as a distribution center. Monday’s final site plan approval is contingent on Damewood Enterprises and Dublin Building Systems – the project’s building contractor – addressing the few remaining comments the city’s Technical Review Committee asked be revisited and incorporated into the final site plan drawings. [Read the full article on UrbanaCitizen.com] 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.
City to ask county board for rights to property By Joshua Keeran - jkeeran@civitasmedia.com, Urbana Daily Citizen There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel for one of the biggest thorns in the side of the city after Urbana City Council authorized administration to accept ownership of the former Q3/JMC Inc. property, pending Champaign County Board of Revision approval, now that a developer has come forward willing to redevelop the site. The 605 Miami St. property, which has been vacant since 2008 and contains several buildings including a large factory partially destroyed by fire last year, also has an issue with contaminated groundwater on the west side of the property. “We believe pretty confidently we have an opportunity on the table for a developer, yet to be named, that’s interested in taking the property and developing it and expanding on it,” Director of Administration Kerry Brugger said. “The caveat is we have to take possession of it in order to work with Honeywell and the Ohio EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to get it cleaned up.” While Brugger added the development agreement is in the process of being finalized, the city’s primary responsibility will be to help clean up the property in order to obtain a “clean bill of health” from the EPA. The majority of the cleanup costs, he said, will be covered by Honeywell, who became liable for the western portion of the property where the environmental concerns are after acquiring the site from Grimes Aerospace years ago. During the cleanup process, any grants awarded to those efforts would go directly to the developer, who will be “driving and coordinating” the project, Brugger said. Prior to council waiving the three-reading rule and passing the measure to seek ownership of the property by a 5-0 vote (council members Doug Hoffman and Eugene Fields were absent), Brugger summed up the impact the property has had on the entire Urbana community over the past several years. “We are at a point where we are going to have to kind of control our own destiny and make this right for the community,” he said. “It’s an eyesore, and it’s a public nuisance. “It’s really a safety concern for not only citizens, but also our own workforce (police and fire),” Brugger added. “We are fortunate to this point that no one has gotten hurt.” With council’s blessing in hand, administration plans to present its case for ownership – free of back taxes – to the county Board of Revision during a special meeting set for 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 22, at the office of the Champaign County commissioners, 1512 S. U.S. Route 68, suite A100. “Hopefully by the end of the year or early next year, we can have the property transferred once (the board) starts the process,” Brugger said. Progress comes with a price According to Doug Crabill, community development manager, the city has been working on the Q3/JMC Redevelopment Project since 2011 when a Phase II Environment Assessment was ordered on the approximately 20-acre property. The assessment was completed in 2013 and funded through a Clean Ohio grant from the Ohio Development Services Agency. Numbers presented by administration show the city has used to date $265,818.89 in grant funding toward the project. Since 2012, the city has also paid out $96,909 for a variety of work and services (legal, engineering, surveying, etc.) associated with the Miami Street property. “We have quite an investment of time, effort, and an ongoing requirement because it’s in our sandbox,” Brugger said. “I think if we take possession of it, get it cleaned up, and get it back into productive use, our investment is not lost. If we push away from the table and let it sit down there, our investment is lost. We have an opportunity for the long term to recoup our investment and get (the property) back into productive use.” Based on the development agreement being ironed out between the city and the interested party, Brugger said, the city’s financial commitment over the anticipated three-year cleanup period is projected to be “somewhere just south of $350,000.” He added the costs won’t all be “hard dollar costs” or involve purchase orders. Instead, the $350,000 figure includes in-kind services or work the city is able to perform on its own using city employees and equipment. “I think it’s money well spent, money that we need to invest in ourselves or we are going to continue to fight something that is just a cancer in the community,” Brugger said. “We need to get rid of it.” Once the three parties – city, developer and Honeywell – complete the cleanup process, the city will see not only an immediate return on some of the money spent, but also future tax dollars through an increased tax base along with a new water and sewer customer. Brugger said the development agreement will include a selling price that the developer will pay the city in order to complete the property transfer once the EPA signs off on the cleanup. As for job creation, Champaign Economic Partnership Executive Director Marcia Bailey informed council the developer has had some success already in marketing the site. “They’ve already been approached by companies who want to start populating down there and getting it back to use,” she said. The initial projection of jobs the development of the eastern portion of the property could bring to the city stands at about 50, Bailey added. In other business: • The Urbana Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 93 is accepting registration forms for its “The Giving Christmas Tree,” a program that provides Christmas presents to children in need within the city. Forms, which are due by Dec. 1, are available at police headquarters in the municipal building, 205 S. Main St. • Council member Pat Thackery reminded residents that leaves should be raked to the edge of the curb, not into the street where they can end up in city gutters, backing up the storm water sewer system. • The city will pick up leaves through Dec. 5, while the compost facility at 1261 Muzzy Road will remain open until at least Dec. 3. Joshua Keeran may be reached at 937-508-2304 or on Twitter @UDCKeeran. Patients from Champaign County can now make appointments to see Memorial Health medical specialists in Urbana.
On Monday, Nov. 14, Memorial Health’s new, temporary office will open at 848 Scioto St. It will be used for medical specialists on a rotating basis until they relocate to Memorial Health’s new 30,000-square-foot, $10.3-million outpatient medical center, which opens in mid-2018. Specialists traveling to this Urbana location will include Michael Jordan, D.O., of Memorial Urology; Mark Stover, D.O. of Memorial Orthopedics and Sports Medicine; and Amish Patel, D.O., of Memorial Pain Management. To make an appointment for evaluation or treatment with one of these physicians at the new office, call (937) 772-4191. The fax number for referrals is (937) 652-4521. “We wanted to start bringing our specialists to Urbana as soon as possible,” said Executive Vice President of Memorial Health and President of Memorial Medical Group Spence Fisher. “We have many patients from Champaign County, and making care convenient to them is a priority.”Memorial Health plans to break ground on its new medical center in the first half of 2017, and open the doors to patients in mid-2018. Memorial Primary Care of Urbana has been affiliated with Memorial Health and will remain at its current location at 900 Scioto St. until it relocates to much-needed larger space when the new medical center opens. Submitted by Memorial Health. Parker Trutec Announces 57,000 Square Feet Building Expansion and New Electrocoating Equipment2/25/2016
Parker Trutec Inc. has announced that the Urbana, Ohio facility will be constructing a 57,000 square foot building expansion. This building expansion will be required for the addition of a third Electrocoating Line to the coatings application facility located at 4795 Upper Valley Pike. This new Electrocoating process line addition compliments the other Electrocoat lines that are already in place at Parker Trutec and is expected to launch mass production by 2nd quarter 2017. The total project cost will exceed 8.0 million dollars.
The state of the art 14 station Electrocoating system is a fully automated rack line which will continue to allow an increase in production capacity for both existing and new customers and will also allow Parker Trutec Urbana to achieve tighter quality industry standards for steel, galvanneal, and aluminum substrates. This new line features 3,000 pound rated racks and processing tank parameters of 16’ x 7’8”x 6’6”. Additionally, this line has the capabilities of rack tilting at each station as needed by customer requirements. Parker Trutec has chosen Henkel brand pretreatment chemicals and Axalta Electocoating paint for this new coating line. The added 57,000 square feet building addition will be utilized to house the new electrocoat line. Additionally, the new building will improve production flow and efficiency for large part processing and allow better utilization of existing floor space throughout the plant. The building addition will add 4 new trucking docks to the existing 29 docks currently in use. Link Construction of Bellefontaine, Ohio has been selected for the new building installation with construction set to begin as early as late October or early November of 2015 with completion required by mid-2016. Parker Trutec Urbana started operations in 1988, is a full service surface coating operation catering to a wide variety of customers with a wide range of specifications and requirements for Zinc, Manganese and Iron Phosphate, Bonderlube, Solid Lubricant / Defric Coatings and Electrocoating. Parker Trutec Inc. is a subsidiary of Nihon Parkerizing Co., Ltd. of Tokyo Japan. Nihon Parkerizing founded over 85 years ago is widely recognized as a world leader in heat treating and metal coatings technology with 87 global facilities in 16 countries. To learn more about how Parker Trutec Inc. can satisfy your surface coating requirements contact Mike Rea mrea@parkertrutec.com or Burke Gruber bgruber@parkertrutec.com at 937-653-8500. For more information on Parker Trutec Inc and their 5North American facilities, log onto www.parkertrutec.com |
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