STRUTHERS Leaders promote industrial park during open house

Open house attendees visited available sites by bus and locomotive.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS -- Times have never been more conducive to redeveloping brownfields.
Laws have changed making it easier to obtain business loans to locate on former industrial sites and exempting buyers from liability for clean-up should environmental issues arise.
This is good news for CASTLO Community Improvement Corp. and the Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity, which hosted an open house for about 90 visitors Wednesday.
CASTLO and the MRCO occupy 1,470 acres of former steel mill property along the Mahoning River from Youngstown through Campbell and Struthers to Lowellville.
If potential tenants knew about the changes in regulations, the site might develop more quickly, putting more Valley residents to work.
At least that's what CASTLO and MRCO officials are hoping. They hosted the open house to help lenders and public officials learn about what the site offers and why locating there would be advantageous for business, said Dan Mamula, mayor of Struthers and MRCO chairman.
The open house, Mamula said, provided an opportunity for "networking -- expanding the key players in the slow process of widening the circle."
"That's how development happens," he said. "Once the private sector realizes the profit potential, they'll be here."
Speakers
Among the speakers were Neil Chase, of URS Corp., who outlined a master plan for redevelopment of the site; Paul Jesse, an attorney with Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & amp; Aronoff, who discussed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act; and Kirstin Toth, director of Great Lakes Environmental Finance Center and coordinator for the Brownfield One Stop Shop.
Attendees visited available buildings in the industrial park, toured available building sites by bus and locomotive -- rail access is available throughout the site -- and visited businesses, such as Astro Shapes, operating in the MRCO.
"It's beautiful and you see the potential," reflected former state Sen. Harry Meshel.
Meshel was among those who initiated the formation of CASTLO Community Improvement Corp. in 1978.
At that time, Meshel thought the industrial park would develop quicker, "but I didn't foresee the economic decline we would experience in so many areas," he said.
There was also a lot of trial and error in finding tenants that were or would develop into viable businesses, he said.
CASTLO, Meshel said, was not only the first brownfield in Ohio to begin redevelopment, but the first in this part of the country.
"There's a lot of good, usable real estate and a lot of good, usable buildings," observed Willis Weir, manager of operations at Casey Equipment Co., a dealer for used steel mill equipment. Casey occupies a portion of the former steel-mill property.
The location is ideal for Casey, he said, because of its access to rail transportation.
kubik@vindy.com