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July 8, 2004
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July 8, 2004 |
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Community Resources purchases land for commerce park; Antioch McGregor may serve as development’s anchor
On the 19th floor of the Mead building in Dayton on Friday morning, a small group of people interested in the future of Yellow Springs signed an agreement they hope will help secure the economic stability of the village and bolster Antioch University McGregor. Vernay Laboratories, a business born out of Antioch College, sold a 46-acre property to Community Resources, a local community improvement corporation, which plans to reserve the first 10 acres for an expanded Antioch McGregor. The real estate closing, unofficially in the works for several months, was handled by local attorneys Sharen and David Neuhardt, who purchased Whitehall Farm at auction in 1999. Friday’s signing, in the same room of the Mead building where the Neuhardts closed on their purchase of Whitehall, marked another historic collaboration between villagers and the Village and Miami Township governments to ensure the future health of Yellow Springs. “I hope this is the start of a really amazing renaissance for the village,” Sharen Neuhardt said. “This purchase by the CIC [Community Resources] is going to stir up lots of discussion and ideas and create momentum for the revitalization of the village.” Community Resources used $300,000 allocated by Village Council and $100,000 donated by the Yellow Springs Community Foundation to purchase the Vernay property on the southwest corner of Dayton Street and East Enon Road, where the group has been hoping to establish a local commerce park for several years, said Dan Young, a Community Resources member who has played a central role in the organization’s efforts. McGregor has not made a final decision on how the university will expand in the coming year, but the Antioch University Board of Trustees at its meeting in Seattle last month authorized McGregor to continue to work on plans for a facility in the commerce park, Dan Kaplan, chairman of the board, said. Young and Fred Bartenstein, a founding member of Community Resources, attended the board meeting to show the community’s interest in McGregor’s future. “Board members were delighted that Yellow Springs is so interested in working with the university,” McGregor President Barbara Gellman-Danley said on Friday. “Dan Young represented Yellow Springs magnificently, and the board saw it as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship with Yellow Springs.” The university resolution calls for establishing an internal project task force to pursue architectural plans and a cost estimate for the new facility, which Gellman-Danley estimates will be upwards of 60,000 square feet and cost about $15 million to construct. She hopes to have the building design completed in time for the board’s next meeting in October in Yellow Springs. McGregor’s plans far exceed a simple expansion of its current 25,000-square-foot building next to the Antioch College campus. Gellman-Danley said her concept for the future of McGregor includes using architectural ingenuity to create an educational retreat center with water fountains, lots of green space and a new library. The concept also includes using a trolley to connect the commerce park to the Antioch campus, downtown, Glen Helen and John Bryan State Park, Young’s Jersey Dairy and other sites in the area. “People are excited about the big picture. This is not just about renovating a building,” Gellman-Danley said, “this is about economic development for the region.” Council president Tony Arnett said that placing McGregor as the “anchor” of the commerce park doesn’t just preserve the university but gives it room to grow. By doing that, he said, “we are creating a powerful engine for the village.” The land for the commerce park is one of three properties identified in the Cooperative Economic Development Agreement (CEDA), which Council and the Miami Township trustees approved to encourage business growth and improve the local tax base. As part of the CEDA, the land will be annexed into Yellow Springs. The Village and Miami Township will provide services to the property and receive tax and utility revenue from the businesses in the park. The Village loaned Community Resources money from the Village Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund to locate and purchase property for business growth. The Village’s contribution leaves $30,000 in the fund, until it is paid back. Community Resources looked at the Vernay property after the company announced two years ago that it was closing its facilities on Dayton Street and then put the vacant land on East Enon up for sale. Though Vernay President and CEO Tom Allen declined to comment at the closing, representatives from Community Resources attended Vernay’s last board meeting in May to negotiate an agreement. “In the long term, making sure Vernay’s properties around the village are put to good use is a big part of economic development for the village,” Neuhardt said. Though Community Resources has now secured the land for a commerce park, the work of getting the right kind of businesses to locate in Yellow Springs or to grow here has only just begun, Young said. The organization formed several subcommittees last week to work on McGregor’s infrastructure needs, aligning the business park design with the community’s needs and with the education concept, marketing and other aspects of developing the site, he said. “We’ve got a lot of homework to do before the next [Antioch] board meeting,” Young said. “All of a sudden we’re out of the theoretical and into the real thing.” Other groups in the village have been working parallel to Community Resources to promote economic activity in the village. Leaders were selected at the Yellow Springs Men’s Group economic forum in March to serve on a Community Round Table to facilitate the development of Yellow Springs as an education village. Other areas of the village may also be preparing to fit into the development picture. The Village and Township have received at least one informal proposal from HRI Commercial Realty in Beavercreek to build a mixed-use business and residential district on 41 acres of farmland, owned by Lucy Fogg, just across the street from the commerce park. The rough plan, discussed briefly at the Miami Township trustees’ meeting, June 21, includes one section for a school, one for small businesses and a larger area for residential development. With Antioch College’s newly unveiled plans for renewal and renovation, the hole McGregor could leave if it relocates to the edge of the village might be space that the college could grow into, Gellman-Danley said. “It’s unusual to have such a win-win-win situation,” she said. The efforts of local leaders were instrumental in convincing Antioch that Yellow Springs was serious about helping McGregor grow in town, though Kaplan said that the Antioch Board of Trustees never received a relocation plan for McGregor. Since Gellman-Danley said that McGregor was considering moving, the community has been “awakened” about McGregor’s potential service to the community, she said, and McGregor has “awakened” to the fact that Yellow Springs is able to accommodate the university, she said. “The harder part of the work is done, we’ve taken the biggest steps,” she said. “I think this will become a really big thing for Yellow Springs. Five years from now I can’t even tell you what the economic impact for every homeowner in Yellow Springs will be.” |
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