AUSTINTOWN Business park is offered as example

A Findlay official says Tall Timbers has been instrumental to his city's growth.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
FINDLAY, Ohio -- The first business park that John Kovach helped build sits nestled among trees a few miles away from downtown in this northwestern Ohio city.
Those trees make Tall Timbers Industrial Park seem more like a residential neighborhood than a commerce center that is home to 17 businesses and about 2,000 jobs. The trees are everywhere, and they nearly hide distribution centers that are at least twice the size of the Tamco distribution center on Victoria Road in Austintown.
In comparison, the business park that Kovach helped develop in Willard several years later seems like a vacant prairie. Willard Industrial Park is marked by fields of dead wildflowers and weeds that slope over a hill behind a home.
The only structure in the park is a 55,000-square-foot building with a few truck bays. A sign in the park advertises that the building is for sale or lease by Kovach's company, Comprehensive Development Services.
New project
As that building sits empty, Kovach is working on his next project: a business park on 379 acres south of Interstate 80 near state Route 11 in Austintown. Kovach believes the new park, called Centerpointe business park, has the potential to become the home of more jobs than Tall Timbers.
First, however, he wants to convince township trustees and area residents that the park will be a positive addition to their community.
That's been a tougher task than Kovach expected.
Zoning meeting
About 100 residents attended a township zoning commission meeting in September to express concerns about the park. Those residents also are expected to be at a public hearing at 7 p.m. Thursday at Fitch High School to discuss a proposed zoning change for the park.
Kovach and Youngstown developer Jonathan Levy have asked the township to change the zoning for the 379 acres from agricultural, business and residential to light industrial. They've said the park could include $90 million in warehouses, retail buildings and offices and create 1,500 jobs. Some residents have said they're concerned that the park could cause drainage, noise and traffic problems, and destroy the natural setting of the area. Residents also have said they're not sure if Levy can attract businesses to the park.
Kovach said he believes the reason Tall Timbers was so successful was that like Austintown, it is located on a major highway that connects it to a city. Findlay is on I-75, about 50 miles south of Toledo.
Centerpointe is slated to be nearly adjacent to the state Route 46 and I-80 intersection, about halfway between Chicago and New York City. Route 11 would run through the middle of the park, and the I-680 and I-76 intersections are only a short drive away.
"The location of Centerpointe is, in my opinion, better than Tall Timbers' is," Kovach said.
Tall Timbers began as a 375-acre cornfield in 1973. Today a wide, two-lane road runs through the park and past large distribution centers and small office buildings. The office buildings appear to be about the same size as some of those in the Victoria Road industrial park in Austintown.
Well-kept
The lawns in front of the buildings are well-kept and bright green, even as winter approaches. The huge distribution centers, covered by aluminum siding in dull blues and browns, also seem to be in good shape.
None of the buildings appears to have smokestacks.
Trees line the road through the park and dot the front lawns of the buildings. In some areas, the trees are so thick that you almost can't see the buildings from the road.
Trees also surround three sides of the park. On one side is Bright Road, a five-lane road that is the site of many small office buildings and retail businesses.
Kovach worked with public officials to build a $6 million, five-lane road that intersects Bright Road and connects Tall Timbers to I-75.
On another side of the park is a farm that is separated from the park by a few hundred feet of trees.
A portion of the park also borders state Route 12. Across the street from the park on Route 12 is a new condominium development.
There were no homes near the park when it was first developed.
Findlay Service-Safety Director Robert Ruse called Tall Timbers "an instrumental part of our growth through the years."
Combined, the businesses in Tall Timbers would be one of the four largest employers in Findlay.
Officials in Willard are still waiting for that type of success to come to their city. Willard City Manager Brian Humphress stressed, however, that the city blames the downturn in the economy, and not Kovach, for the park's slow growth.
hill@vindy.com