CASTLO News!

"CASTLO generates new jobs, renews community vitality"

~ February 22, 2005, Tribune Chronicle "Progress Edition"
 

STRUTHERS- "Reclamation of brownfields - abandoned or under-utilized industrial properties- is recycling on a grand scale, according to William DeCicco, executive director of the 120-acre CASTLO Industrial Park in Struthers, former site of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co.'s Struthers Works.

 

"It generates new jobs and sources of revenue, renews community vitality, and safeguards rural and suburban greenfields," DeCicco said recently.

 

The CASTLO Community Improvement Corporation's 18 tenants - seven of which came aboard in the last two years- added 40 new jobs last year, bringing the park's annual payroll to more than $4million.

Brownfield reclamation has impacted multiple sites in the CASTLO area lately, such as: Youngstown Performance Place welcoming expansions for Exal and Cantar Polyair; Lowellville attracted two expanding businesses, Screen Technologies and Garland Welding; and in Campbell, Allegheny Heat Treat and Impact Metals Corporation now operate at Casey Industrial Park.

 

Such progress came via confronting and overcoming environmental hurdles, concerns and misperceptions.  Both the federal and state environmental protection agencies have assisted with programs encouraging balanced, sustainable, economically viable, environmentally responsible clean-up and redevelopment through promoting efficient use of land and existing infrastructure.

 

Participating in these programs dovetails with the goals of the Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity, of which CASTLO is a founding member and key player in.  MRCO is a multi-jurisdictional public/private partnership striving to facilitate sustainable redevelopment of more than 1,470 acres of industrial brownfield along 4.5 miles of the Mahoning River in Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers, whose Mayor Daniel C. Mamula is chair.

 

In November, a $171,000 U.S. EPA Brownfield Assessment grant was activated for a Phase II environmental assessment on CASTLO's western 80 acres, as was a Clean Ohio grant of $201,091 to help remediate of the park's easternmost vacant 40 acres for potential future development.