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Athens County officials break ground on industrial building expected to bring new business and jobs to the region
By: David Forster
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THE PLAINS, Ohio (WOUB) — The first shovelfuls of dirt were turned Friday morning on a new industrial building that Athens County officials hope will bring around 100 good-paying jobs to the region.
The 60,000-square foot building is going up on a patch of grassy field in the Bill Theisen Industrial Park in The Plains.
The Athens County Port Authority is building the structure on spec, meaning it doesn’t yet have a business lined up to occupy the space.
Instead, the hope is that having a brand-new facility ready to go will be a strong selling point for economic development officials trying to encourage a business to expand or locate in Athens County.
The new building, which will cost upwards of $7 million to build, is an important step toward diversifying the local economy and reducing its reliance on the government sector, Mollie Fitzgerald, executive director of the Athens County Economic Development Council, said at the groundbreaking ceremony.
Fitzgerald said she hoped to have a business lined up for the building before construction is completed. She said target businesses are light manufacturing or biotechnology.
This will be the Port Authority’s second spec building. The first, built more than a decade ago, is about 100 yards across the field in the industrial park. It is now home to Stirling Ultracold, which employs about 200 people and makes super-low temperature freezers used in the pharmaceutical, life science and biotechnology industries, among others.
“You don’t know when you’re going to start getting rent payments,” he said.
But at the same time, he said, most businesses prefer to move into an existing building rather than go through the hassle of building one. The spec building will provide a blank slate that a business can finish off to its own needs.
“It’s a big step. It’s a smart step,” Jacoby said, and noted that this will be one of the biggest spec buildings built in southeast Ohio.
“Athens County is taking a step we want every county in our region to take,” he said.
The project is being funded by a $2.9 million grant from JobsOhio, which was used mostly for site preparation, and a $5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
The groundbreaking ceremony just happened to coincide with another groundbreaking in Ohio, for Intel’s planned $20 billion chip manufacturing complex northeast of Columbus.
Terry Slaybaugh, vice president of infrastructure and sites for JobsOhio, referenced the Intel project in his remarks.
“Since their announcement they’re coming to Ohio our phones are ringing off the hook,” he said. Most companies are looking for spaces under 200,000 square feet, he said, which puts the Athens County spec building “right in the sweet spot.”
Fitzgerald said there’s room to expand the new building to double its size down the road if need be. And there is already talk about constructing another spec building of about 30,000 to 40,000 square feet in the industrial park that would be targeted at businesses needing laboratory space.