LIBERTY COMMONS INDUSTRIAL PARK

Introduction

Liberty Commons Industrial Park is proposed to involve a partnership of public and private activities designed to maximize the potential of existing structures in a well- established industrial area in the community and to provide opportunities for new growth in the area. In addition to restoring the vitality of the area, the project will focus on retaining existing employment opportunities and providing new job potential for the Greater Lima Area.

The Vision

The Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce and the West Central Ohio Regional Development Board have endorsed implementation of the proposal. Chamber recommendations.

Proposed Improvements

In addition to encouraging private property redevelopment efforts, the community's commitment to the Liberty Commons Industrial Park is needed to maximize the Park's potential. Community resources to be directed toward infra-structure improvements are expected to include:

• $2,159,500 for surgical demolition of structures and general site clearance as needed to enhance the adaptive reuse potential of the major existing structural components in the Park
   
• $765,700 for construction of interior roadways and upgrading of existing roadways to improve accessibility to existing facilities and to expand the opportunity for new facilities within the industrial park
   
• $45,400 for improvements to existing roadways to ensure adequate service capacity to the project area
   
• $1,073,800 for upgrading of existing water and sewer services to supplement and expand existing facilities in the south end of the park. Improvements will include a sanitary lift station and fire hydrant spacing at approximately 300 ft.
   
• $884,000 for construction of curbs, gutters and drainage related improvements and installation of modern street lighting
   
• $1,361,300 for new and improved parking and service areas
   
• $806,400 for interior and perimeter landscaping, signage and other improvements
   
• $361,300 for engineering, site inspections and other necessary services to facilitate completion of the project

As a community, we also must stand ready to provide assistance to businesses, as appropriate, in accessing state and federal resources to assist them in addressing environmental concerns, including site cleanup, to ensure that Liberty Commons Industrial Park represents a modern, competitive facility which is both environmentally and aesthetically attractive to park tenants and to the surrounding community. Our efforts will be designed to result in industrial and office facilities which have been modernized to appeal to manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers. The project also will include development of an incubator program to facilitate "home grown" businesses as well. Those of us who live and work in the Greater Lima Area understand what our community has to offer including:

• A Quality work force second to none
   
• Water, sewer and public utilities with ample capacity to serve our needs well into the future
   
• Affordable housing in which to raise our families
   
• Outstanding medical and educational facilities
   
• A growing retail and service sector which has become a leader statewide

The Greater Lima Area historically has benefited from a citizenry which possessed the talent, dedication and resources to develop a major industrial base which for decades allowed our community to grow and prosper. Unfortunately, too much of our manufacturing work force is idle or forced to drive to other communities to work. For three decades, our workers, and their families, have watched as corporate citizens downsized, relocated or closed -- taking with them important jobs and hopes for the future. It now is apparent that for more than thirty years, our community has failed its citizens too many times. This has happened for many reasons:

• Some feared accepting outside funding would result in outside control
   
• Some felt powerless and overwhelmed by the magnitude of our problems
   
• Some said we couldn't try new solutions to problems because those solutions had never been tried here before and, therefore, wouldn't work.

Now, thirty years later, we continue to see good jobs taken away from our work force and our community's economic vitality threatened. We can no longer afford to turn our heads away and hope all the problems go away -- or to reject out of hand new ideas and tools which could enable the Greater Lima Area to grow and prosper once again. We have before us a unique opportunity:

• Corporate citizens who are willing to share the burden of addressing our problems and helping to create new job opportunities in our community
   
• An array of state and federal resources to help us address a variety of issues such as environmental clean-up, defense industry downsizing and job retraining
   
• A viable industrial park developed and fully ready to accommodate industries seeking to building new facilities
   
• An established industrial area which can be renovated and redeveloped to house industries which don't have the time or desire to build new structures but are looking for existing facilities in which to grow.

We believe Liberty Commons Industrial Park can and should be such a facility. We hope that all sectors of our community will join together in restoring the economic vitality of this area.

Update on Liberty Commons

Lima's Liberty Commons Project is Right on Track

In the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's, Lima, Ohio was hard-hit by industrial closings and defense- downsizing. When three of its major employers closed their doors, the city lost 8,800 jobs and was faced with 1.8 million square feet of idle industrial space. Now Lima is turning around, and a group of abandoned industrial sites along the city's railroad tracks is poised for profitable redevelopment. This change in the area's fortunes was made possible by EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative, a program designed to empower stakeholders in their efforts to turn sites with actual or perceived contamination into productive community assets.

Using a $200,000 EPA grant, the City of Lima developed the Lima Brownfields Pilot (Pilot) which targeted four properties for transformation into the 200-acre Liberty Commons Industrial Park, a business community that, when completed, will attract high-wage manufacturing. So far, the Pilot's activities have coordinated the assessment and cleanup of a Liberty Commons parcel that has been vacant for 18 years, prompted a unique study of Lima's rail resources, and leveraged more than $1 million in funding toward a project expected to create a significant increase in new jobs.

The 65-acre Lima Locomotive Works site within Liberty Commons produced locomotives for almost 60 years, and at one time was the third-largest locomotive manufacturer in the country. Prior to the Pilot, the "Loco Works" site sat empty for nearly 20 years after the facility shut down, a decaying dinosaur surrounded by a neighborhood that was steadily losing shops, restaurants and banks. The site's deterioration marked Lima as an old rustbelt city and made other businesses hesitant to develop it or nearby property. Several developers had approached the Loco Works' owner with interest in the site, but had ultimately declined to purchase it because of difficulties in obtaining thorough, up-to-date assessment results.

The City successfully negotiated with the site's owner to demolish the property's blighted buildings, clear away all rubble and debris, and perform up to $50,000 in cleanup in accordance with the Ohio Voluntary Action Program (VAP). During 1997, the owner destroyed all buildings except three deemed to have economic value, salvaging any valuable building materials . The Pilot resources then allowed geo-probe sampling, an assessment method in which soil and/or groundwater samples are taken with minimal disturbance of the surrounding area, followed by environmental assessments. The assessment results revealed that soil cleanup would cost less than $100,000, and that significant savings could be realized if engineering controls were put in place during redevelopment. With the Pilot's help, the City of Lima, in accordance with the Pilot's work plan, applied to the VAP for a Covenant Not to Sue for the Loco Works site, leveraging more than $80,000 from local sources to help fund the application.

The City of Lima purchased the Loco Works site for $687,500 in August 1999, using a purchase grant from the Ohio Department of Development. In December 1999, the city negotiated a $1.5 million sales agreement for the site with Global Energy, LTD., a Cincinnati based energy marketer. Upon completion of the sale, all cost associated with the pilot will be reimbursed to the City of Lima , which will fund further Brownfields economic development. Global Energy plans to construct a 540 megawatt electrical generator on the site that would employ an innovative coal gasification technology to produce electricity. The project will compress municipal solid waste and coal into briquettes that are transformed into synthetic fuel to power gas turbines, with pollution levels much lower than a conventional coal-firing electrical plant. As many as 1,000 local workers will be hired for the plant's construction, and nearly 120 full-time jobs will be created by its operation. In addition, the resulting electricity will be available for as much as 30 percent lower than existing rates.

A study of Lima's rail network conducted by the Ohio Rail Commission, and the design of a new short- line railroad to serve Liberty Commons, was funded by a $150,000 Defense Conversion Assistance Program (DCAP) grant. In the first initiative of its kind in the state, the Rail Commission studied the city's rail network and identified ways to link, develop, and market the rail lines that converge at the Loco Works site. The City believes that the existence of these lines, which will provide a built-in transportation center for the businesses who choose to locate within Liberty Commons, will be a major asset for the project.

In the past two years, the City of Lima has received a total of six grants from almost as many sources to complement the one provided by EPA. These additional funds will finance cleanup and/or redevelopment in other areas of the Liberty Commons project. The city was awarded two $10,000 grants from the U.S. Department of Justice's "Weed and Seed" program; one grant was used to explore marketing strategies for the Liberty Commons project, while the other provides supplemental funding for a Pilot-created database of underutilized sites in the city. An initial grant of $500,000, with an additional supplemental grant of $187,500 from the Ohio Urban and Rural Initiative, was used to purchase the property. Another $300,000 from DCAP will cover Liberty Commons' marketing activities once cleanup and redevelopment has progressed. For more information on the Lima Brownfields Pilot, contact Gary Sheely at (419) 221-5294.