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In Columbiana Co., brownfield is ready for redevelopment
COLUMBIANA
Property along Esterly Road is set for redevelopment after cleanup of industrial contamination provided by a $750,000 grant from the Clean Ohio Fund.
The 37-acre brownfield once housed the Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., and later, National Refractories & Minerals Corp., which closed in 2002. Redevelopment of the site has been approved after an environmental assessment completed by Columbiana County Port Authority.
Work on the property, at 41738 Esterly Road, included cleanup of contamination to a level that allows for commercial or industrial redevelopment.
Since 2000, the Clean Ohio Fund has been preserving green space and cleaning up brownfields to encourage redevelopment and revitalization of communities.
The site has 111 total acres, and 40 acres are still available for development, according to Tracy Drake, chief executive of the Columbiana County Port Authority. He said marketing for the site will continue.
“That’s a real nice piece of property,” he said, explaining it is near the intersections of state Routes 11 and 344 and has rail access.
Current tenants of the property include: Zarbana Industries Inc., an aluminum extrusions and fabricating company; Columbiana Grinding, which makes a pulverized powder used to reduce smokestack emissions from power plants; and Better Management Corp. of Ohio, a waste-transportation and disposal company.
Buckeye Transfer has owned the site since 2003 but sold it to the port authority for $1 so the agency could pursue grants for cleanup. After receiving word in July that cleanup was complete, the port authority was able to transfer ownership back to Buckeye.
State Rep. Craig Newbold of Columbiana, R-1st, lauded the port authority’s efforts, calling them “an excellent example of how we can take a liability and make it a valuable asset.”
He called the property’s location “prime” and said he hopes there will be “significant interest” in its redevelopment.
Drake said there have been a handful of companies that have looked at the property and said the interest in drilling of Marcellus and Utica shale in the region could generate interest in the location.
The Environmental Protection Agency says a brownfield is a property that is or has the potential to be contaminated with hazardous substances or pollutants.