CASTLO News!

"CASTLO Establishes Development Goals for Industrial Park"

~ January 10, 2008, Hometown Journal
 

STRUTHERS – “Now that the buildings at the CASTLO Industrial Park are nearly full, it’s time to re-evaluate our purpose as well as our role in the CASTLO communities,” reflects Executive Director William D. DeCicco as he reviews the organization’s 2007 accomplishments.

 

With CASTLO’s 30th anniversary of service to the Mahoning Valley approaching in March 2008, board members Sarah Lown (Vice-President, Industrial Park Management) and Randy Partika, P.E. (Vice-President, Program) are co-chairing an ad hoc committee which is in the process of reviewing the organization’s long- and short-term goals and objectives in concert with its mission to advance, encourage and promote the industrial, economic, commercial and civic development of the CASTLO communities: Campbell, Struthers, Lowellville, and Poland and Coitsville townships.

 

Focusing on long-term employment growth opportunities within the Industrial Park and throughout the five CASTLO communities in an effort to increase the local tax base, support and strengthen community services and enhance the overall quality of life, the CASTLO Community Improvement Corporation (CIC) is working to identify and promote new economic development initiatives within its member communities as well as determine future capital improvement projects that will encourage additional job creation at its 120-acre Industrial Park located in downtown Struthers. CASTLO is also planning to become more active at the regional level by coordinating with other neighboring communities, including Youngstown, and by also furthering brownfield initiatives throughout the entire Mahoning Valley.

 

At the Industrial Park, long-term strategies are being developed to expand the existing infrastructure, construct new buildings, and enhance future development activities.

 

Short-term strategies for the Industrial Park include: ongoing promotion and marketing; developing a routine maintenance schedule for its buildings, grounds and infrastructure; optimizing adaptive re-use of existing buildings; continued demolition of functionally obsolete buildings; and completion of environmental remediation activities.

 

Since its inception, a priority for the park, which is a “brownfield” (under-utilized industrial property) purchased in 1980 from the former Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company, has been acquiring an environmental clean bill of health. After years of investment, refurbishment and clean-up, the Park’s 40 eastern-most acres will soon achieve this standard in accordance with Ohio Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Now, DeCicco notes, “For the first time the possibility exists to subdivide the eastern portion of the park into saleable and/or leasable parcels for future development when potential employers express an interest.”

 

Further, CASTLO anticipates the eventual receipt of an OEPA “Covenant Not to Sue” for its entire property, thanks in part to a $188,000 Clean Ohio Assistance Fund grant that CASTLO received in March 2007 through the City of Struthers to conduct additional environmental assessments on the park’s 80 westernmost acres.

 

Within the park, 2007 was a time for sprucing up its overall appearance, razing approximately 45,000 square feet of unsightly and no longer functional buildings and grading additional land for redevelopment. “It’s been a win/win proposition,” DeCicco explains. “We sold the demolition scrap for money that was reinvested in the park.” As 2008 begins, two original buildings not yet retrofitted have been painted and their windows re-glazed to enhance their appearance and marketability.

 

In 2007, the park welcomed new tenant Argon Steel, a small foundry which is in the process of assembling equipment for a start-up of operations in the new year. Argon is the second foundry to call CASTLO home, the first being Fast-Cast, LLC.

 

While the Industrial Timber & Lumber Company, Aqua Ohio, Inc. and the Drywall Barn remain as anchors, two other tenants have recently expanded their operations. JPI Painting will enlarge its premises in 2008 and StateLine Paving, LLC, has established a maintenance garage which is being utilized to service the firm’s extensive equipment.

 

Other Industrial Park tenants include: Allied Erecting & Dismantling Company, Inc.; American Tower Corporation; A-Zar Construction Company, LLC; Chimaera Sculpture & Display, LLC; G-Force Contracting; Garden Scapes of Ohio, Inc.; L&M Supply, Inc.; Mahoning Valley Electric Service, Inc.; Mahoning Valley Railroad Heritage Association, Inc.; Marblehead Equipment, LLC; Mobilitie, Inc.; and T-Mobile USA, Inc. Youngstown Class “B” Baseball, Inc. continues to lease the Industrial Park’s newest building as an athletic training center. CASTLO also provides space gratis for use by the Campbell, Lowellville and Struthers street departments.

 

Beyond the park, promotion of individual buildings and sites throughout the five CASTLO communities remains a vital focus for the CIC, as does continued work with the Mahoning River Consortium (MRC), participation in the Youngstown 2010 program, and forwarding the causes of the 12-year-old Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity (MRCO). The MRCO, a multi-jurisdictional public/private partnership of which CASTLO is a founding member and key player, champions sustainable redevelopment of 1,470+ acres of industrial brownfield along a five-mile stretch of the Mahoning River in Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers.

 

Thanks to the presence of the new Walton Avenue bridge, other MRCO infrastructure projects are being pursued, including an access roadway and a second bridge to make various industrial sites on the north side of the Mahoning River in Campbell more marketable, and an extension of Struthers’ Bob Cene Way to serve the 40-acre former Youngstown Sheet & Tube Coke plant site. Also, it is anticipated OEPA will soon award a “Covenant Not to Sue” letter to Struthers that will enable Astro Shapes, the MRCO’s largest employer, to develop the property.

 

In November, the CASTLO Industrial Park and the Struthers/Astro Shapes property were two of 13 locations featured at the recent inaugural Ohio Brownfield Conference for their progress and proactive role in the reclamation and redevelopment of former steel mill properties.

 

In addition to Lown and Partika, the following officers were re-elected at CASTLO’s 2007 annual meeting: Dr. William C. Binning, chairman; Marion Creed, president; Jean McBride, secretary/treasurer; Frank Galletta, vice-president of Finance; and William Livosky, vice-president of Nominations & Personnel.

 

Additional trustees include Coitsville Township trustee Walter Avdey; Kelly Becker; Ray Calcagni, Jr.; Campbell Mayor Jack Dill; George Garchar; Walter Good; Struthers first ward councilperson Sherri Hartzell; Atty. Michael Hoza; Carol Hirt; Lowellville Mayor James Iudiciani; Mary Kropinak; Michael Kusalaba, P.E.; Poland Township trustee Robert Lidle (James Scharville, alternate); Richard Melvin; Vivian Powers; Ed Reese; Paul Stebelton; and newly elected Struthers Mayor Terry Stocker.

 

In March, the Board reluctantly accepted Anthony Frattaroli’s resignation as a trustee and honored his 16 years of dedicated service to both CASTLO and the Struthers community, and in December, former Struthers Mayor Daniel Mamula, chief architect of the MRCO, attended his 150th board meeting, and his last, as a CASTLO trustee.

 

A good neighbor, CASTLO continues to support the surrounding community with its own real estate taxes as well as the state, municipal and school taxes paid on the combined annual $5,000,000 payroll of its tenants’ approximately 150 employees.