Commissioners updated on Richland County economic development efforts

Officials of the Richland Community Development Group say leasing the 160,000-square-foot spec building that the Adena Corporation built in the Airport West Industrial Park in Mansfield is expected to help local officials bring other new businesses to the area. The project was one of many successful efforts in 2023 that the organization, which is part of Richland Area Chamber and Economic Development, outlined in a year-end report Tuesday to the Richland County commissioners.

Director of Development Barrett Thomas told the board that the group had nine project “wins” last year that resulted in 113 new jobs, $6.5 million in new payroll and $16.5 million in new capital expenditures. Thomas said leasing the Adena building to the Hedstrom division of Ball, Bounce and Sport Inc. for warehousing and light manufacturing was one of the highlights of the year because it was the first speculative building in the area in “quite a while.”

Thomas said officials were trying to market the rest of Airport West and a 400-acre site north of that and discussed the fact that if the spec building was not filled, it would be really difficult to sell the rest of the land.

“We created a whole bunch of marketing material that never existed before. We pushed that building out to lots of contacts — worked lots of different leads for that and successfully landed the project obviously with Adena’s help and their partners to get Hedstrom there,” he said. “It’s really important to have local developers that we can get on the phone and we can go in person to talk to and talk about what sorts of development and what sorts of buildings we need to fit the projects that are coming in.”

Officials also organized two industry-specific tours to local businesses that included regional and state development officials and were successful in leveraging the knowledge and expertise of industry specialists and connecting the businesses with resources for expansion and connections for growth. Thomas noted that economic development is a “long game” with projects that go long into the future, pointing to the last week’s announcement of a regional broadband initiative as an example.

Shelby economic development projects highlighted

Jessica Gribben, economic development coordinator for Shelby and northern Richland County, listed a number of successful projects in Shelby last year including installation of the arch on Main Street with the help of Arcelor Mittal and building facade improvements using public and private dollars. She also highlighted the opening of the Black Fork Brewery on Mansfield Avenue, the planned opening at the end of the month of an Avita Heath Systems walk-in health clinic and completion at the end of 2023 of a county housing study.

“Prior to the housing study, there wasn’t an active group that was specifically focused on housing. There was a little bit in the city of Mansfield but not a whole lot outside of that,” Gribben said, adding that bringing groups together that talked about housing countywide was a big deal. “We’ve also been able to support some housing projects that were happening — Metro Housing is building some new units to add to their facilities and the Area Agency on Aging.”

Workforce development and job training also played an important role in Richland County economic development last year.

Clint Knight, director of workforce development, said efforts in those areas included policy updates and recertification with the Ohio Department of job and Family Services and partnering with the Mid-Ohio Educational Services Center to connect with nine manufacturing facilities for a summer teacher boot camp to inform educators about local job opportunities and create curriculum to be used in their classrooms.

“We’ve all heard that manufacturing today is not your grandfather’s manufacturing, so we want to make sure the people facing the young people actually have the first-hand knowledge of how technology is being used and what these (work) environments look like,” he explained.

The area workforce development board also used $200,000 in state funds to upskill over 100 employees across five companies and another $100,000 to create a website and social media campaign to guide individuals interested in training and jobs, noting that 36 people already have used the internet portal.

Other activities last year, which were outlined by Marketing and Communications Director Sandy Messner, included the launch of the countywide branding campaign, which already has 280 material downloads, a family of community videos and an online web page with resources for businesses to deal with the total solar eclipse April 8.

Funds OK'd for Oak Hill Cottage roof project

In other business on Tuesday, commissioners agreed to allocate $36,790 in county capital projects funds to replace the cedar shingles on the north side of the roof at Oak Hill Cottage in Mansfield. The work will be done by The Regency Roofing Companies Inc. of Macedonia.

“They’re not at failure point right now, but they’re very much eroded from the weathering, plus the shingles at the peak are blown off,” said Alan Wigton, president of the Richland County Historical Society. He said the group considered synthetic shingles but found that cedar was more historically “appropriate” at relatively the same cost.

The last time the shingles were replaced was in 2003.

The historical society bought Oak Hill Cottage and its contents in 1965, deeded it to Richland County in 1972 and restored the building with donated funds and grants.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Commissioners updated on Richland County economic development efforts