By Keith Gushard

Meadville Tribune

There are two words Mark Turner wishes were never associated with the Keystone Regional Industrial Park in Greenwood Township — “shovel ready,” meaning it’s ready for a prospective tenant to begin a building project.

“It’s haunted me,” says Turner, executive director of the Economic Progress Alliance of Crawford County, which owns the industrial park that’s been under development since 2000. Turner joined the Alliance in 2004.

This is the fourth year the Alliance is keeping the same top goal — landing the first tenant for the 1,300-acre industrial park.

While Keystone still awaits its first tenant as the site is developed, the Alliance continues to have success in other areas. It landed more tenants at Crawford Business Park in Vernon Township and sold off land in West Mead Industrial Park for development. Despite a down economy, the Alliance also help process $2.6 million in loans for projects at nine area firms in 2008.

What continues to hold Keystone back from landing a tenant is the lack of infrastructure — namely water and sewer lines and roads — at the park, said Turner.

When the Keystone was first being set up in 2000, Sue Ferry, a past executive director of Meadville Area Industrial Commission (one of the Alliance’s predecessor agencies), often billed it “shovel ready,” meaning a prospective tenant just basically had to put up a building.

There is a water tower, some water lines and an access road off Adamsville Road leading into a 223-acre area where HON Industries, a Muscatine, Iowa-based office furniture manufacturer, bought 80 acres in January 2001.

However, it is a water well system only for that 223-acre area. Though it still owns that land, HON hasn’t built yet.

“It just never worked out for us,” said Steven Bradford, vice president general counsel of HNI Corp., HON’s parent firm. Bradford said HON is working on an agreement to sell the property to another party, but doesn’t know when the deal may close.

“It was absurd,” said Turner. “Obviously, it was not shovel ready. It was more promotional than reality. I think the perception we created ourselves made it difficult to deal with.”

Bill Bragg, president of the Alliance board of directors, agrees, but points out part of the park was ready for industry.

“The whole park was not shovel ready,” said Bragg. “We’re only getting a water system ready now.”

“I was not involved with it, but HON was ready to go,” Bragg said, noting that the part of the park where HON was to build did have a water tower and localized water wells for that 223-acre area.

“The local wells could not support a large water-intensive industry or multiple industries,” he said of the initial area that was prepared.

Contacted by the Tribune, Ferry, a past executive director of Meadville Area Industrial Commission, a predecessor agency to the Alliance, said “I support the statements that I made at the time I made them. I fully support the economic development group and their ongoing efforts to further develop the park.”



Wetlands, wildlife issues

Only in the past couple of years has progress started to be made on the total development of the park, but at a much slower pace than originally anticipated because of wetlands and wildlife habitat issues, Turner said.

Before construction of the public water system for the industrial park could be considered, wetlands within the 1,300-acre site had to be delineated because it’s near the Conneaut Marsh.

Starting in 2006, the Alliance worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to determine what areas are truly wetlands.

“Delineating the wetlands took two years,” said Turner. “We didn’t get the jurisdictional letter on what areas are wetlands until mid -2008.”

About 650 to 700 acres of the industrial park in the northern section of the park are characterized as wetlands that can’t be developed.

Mapping of the park has been completed and the land-use master plan is being finished.

As for the wildlife issues, the Pennsylvania Game Commission got involved in assessing the site because water wells for the water system are located in the Conneaut Marsh. The marsh is a highly protected area because of its composition and because it’s a nesting area for bald eagles, which are federally protected. The two initial water wells were located near eagle nesting areas and the two water wells that were eventually approved by state and federal regulators are farther east — away from the nesting area.

“We had to move the wells about five miles away,” said Turner.

Nesting eagles weren’t the only creatures causing concern for the Alliance.

“We had to stop work because of rare rattlesnake habitat,” he said. “It cost about $3,000 and several months to investigate. These are unpredictable things that have taken an extraordinary amount of time.”

Bragg, too, says the board has been frustrated by the slow pace at Keystone, but “they are reasons beyond our control.”

Turner said construction on the water system finally should begin this year. “Conclusion of the water project will move from predevelopment to development,” he said. “Now we know what we can market.”

The Alliance continues to talk with a couple of prospects about locating at Keystone, Turner said. The same ones it has spoken with over the last three years, he said.

“If the national economy turns around, that will help,” said Turner.

Bragg isn’t disappointed with Turner, who was paid $92,500 in 2007.

The Alliance refused to release his salary for this year, but the organization does have a total 2009 payroll of $1,008,000 with a staff of 33 full-time workers. The payroll is funded by the Alliance’s operating revenues from rents, land sales and loan fees.

“That’s something we don’t talk about,” Bragg said of Turner’s salary, adding that his compensation is “not paid out of public funds. He’s paid out of rents and income we generate.”

Bragg said trying to get a firm to relocate to a given area is a challenge not just here, but across the nation.

“There’s about 1,500 companies that relocate every year, but there are about 33,000 development agencies chasing after them,” Bragg explained, citing what he said were statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“We’re very happy overall —not only with Mark, but we have a tremendous professional staff and construction crew,” said Bragg.

Overall, progress is being made, according to Bragg.



Crawford Business Park

“We’ve about filled up Crawford Business Park,” said Bragg. “There have been huge improvements to this place.”

Crawford Business Park in Vernon Township — the site of the former Avtex Fibers Inc. plant — had three new leases in 2008, according to Alliance officials. There are now 29 tenants with a combined total employment of approximately 875 employees.

Also, some 65,000 square feet of space at Crawford Business Park were remodeled, and 165,000 square feet of roof was replaced.

Right now, there’s more than 810,000 square feet of space leased out at Crawford Business Park with only a few thousand square feet remaining, according to the Alliance.

Crawford Business Park in particular has been a major success. Since 2005, Turner and his staff have been able to add 11 firms with 576 workers, leasing some 326,300 square feet.



West Mead Industrial Park

The Alliance also completed the sale of more than 100 acres of property the Alliance held at the West Mead Industrial Park to private hands in 2008 and is in negotiations to sell the remaining few acres there, Bragg said.



Loan applications

In 2008, the Alliance also helped process 12 state or local loans totaling $2.6 million to nine area businesses for projects valued at more than $8.9 million.

That’s down from 2007 when 13 loan applications totaling $14.1 million for projects that totaled $18.3 million were processed.

The drop in its loan activity in 2008 is reflective of the downturn of the national economy, according to Bragg. “It’s difficult to expand a business in times like these.” However, the business loans through the Alliance have helped preserve and add hundreds of new jobs this decade, Bragg said.

From 2000 through 2008, some 100 firms have been helped with approximately $48 million in loans toward more than a $79 million in projects, resulting in more than 4,200 jobs retained and more than 600 positions created.

“The preservation of jobs is one of our keys to helping existing business,” said Bragg. “The loan programs Mark oversees are key.”



Redevelopment Authority focusing on Meadville’s Block Grant Funding

Meadville Redevelopment Authority has been focusing on the city of Meadville’s Community Development Block Grant program funding for 2009, according to Jill Groves, the authority’s executive director.

The CDBG program is federally-funded with money passing through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. By law, at least 51 percent of CDBG-funded projects must benefit low- or moderate-income households.

The redevelopment authority plans to spend more than $300,000 of its 2009 funding on curb-cut improvements to make various intersections around the community more handicapped-accessible, she said.

The authority has $367,023 in its regular 2009 CDBG application with another $93,960 in additional CDBG funding under the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Some $219,064 in regular CDBG funding and the $93,960 allocation will go toward curb cut improvements, Groves said.

Another $40,370 in regular CDBG funding will go toward slum and blight removal; $30,000 toward code enforcement; and $77,589 toward administration and audit of the program, she said.

The authority has been working on a grant application for the state’s Main Street Program, Groves said. The program would hirer a person to promote and coordinate downtown activities.

The authority also has been working with Erie Bank to help it develop a new full-service banking office downtown, she said.