January 20, 2005

Forum gives commerce park update

By Robert Mihalek

Last week an estimated 200 people attended a meeting sponsored by Community Resources to learn more about the Center for Business and Education, where Antioch University McGregor plans to relocate.

The meeting, held on Tuesday, Jan. 11, at the Bryan Community Center gym, featured presentations on the commerce park and on Antioch McGregor’s new campus, as well as more than an hour of questions and answers and discussion of the project.

Members of Community Resources, a local community improvement corporation, said that construction of the new campus is scheduled to begin in September and will be completed in December 2006. McGregor expects to open the doors to its new $15 million campus in January 2007.

Community Resources, a nonprofit organization run by a volunteer board, plans to pursue annexation of the commerce park land, located at East Enon and Dayton-Yellow Springs Roads, this month. The process is expected to take three months, according to information provide by the organization. The group also plans to take action to rezone the land, now zoned as agriculture, next month. Community Resources expects to complete the rezoning process by May.

Last summer Community Resources purchased 46 acres of farmland owned by Vernay Laboratories for the commerce park. The group used a $100,000 grant from the Community Foundation and $300,000 from the Village Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund.

Dan Young, the vice chairman of Community Resources, said that the Community Foundation placed no strings on the grant but did ask Community Resources to use revenue from the park for future economic development.

Before the meeting, Young said that Community Resources will finance the construction project through tax-free bonds. McGregor will lease its facility from Community Resources, and those payments will help the organization pay back the bonds, he said. McGregor also plans to conduct some private fundraising to pay for the project.

Community Resources is also seeking grants from the state and the federal government, with help from the office of Congressman David Hobson, whose district includes Yellow Springs.

The McGregor campus will feature a 65,000-square-foot facility on 10 acres. Other tenants have not been identified, Community Resources members said. Lisa Abel, a member of the Community Resources board, said during last week’s meeting that the group would like other businesses that complement McGregor to occupy the park. These could include health care, office-based and research firms, she said. She stressed that Community Resources will not allow retail shops in the park.

Abel described the development of the commerce park as slow and planned. “It will take 10 to 15 years to fill up,” she said, “so you won’t see an explosion in buildings” in the park.

Community Resources has found that potential tenants want a building in “move-in condition” and “built to suit,” Abel said. “They don’t want to refurbish the old bowling alley,” she added.

“We want to create the opportunity for success, for some growth” that follows what the community wants, Young said.

Barbara Gellman-Danley, the president of McGregor, said the university needs to create more space for students and faculty, which would help McGregor expand its programs and increase student enrollment.

In response to a question about the risks McGregor and Community Resources are taking with this project, Gellman-Danley said, “Every decision McGregor has made in the last five years” has followed a risk-management solution. Without studying the risks, she said, McGregor “would not have the audacity to go to the Board of Trustees” with a proposal for the new campus.

“There is a much bigger risk that McGregor will go away if we don’t do something big,” she added.

Gellman-Danley described the project as a “wonderful opportunity for the university, for the village and for McGregor.”

Community Resources plans to develop the commerce park under guidelines contained in the Cooperative Economic Development Agreement, or CEDA. The CEDA, a pact approved by both Miami Township and Council in 2002 when Tony Arnett was president of Council, stipulates that the Township and the Village will work together to promote business development.

The CEDA originally designated two properties for possible annexation and development: the Vernay land that Community Resources purchased and farmland on the east side of East Enon Road, which is part of the Pitstick farm.

Last year, Council and the Miami Township trustees added a third property to the CEDA, the 39-acre Fogg farm, whose owners want to annex the land into Yellow Springs and develop it.

Under the CEDA, the Village will provide to the annexed areas water and sewer services, police protection, street lighting and other Village services. Miami Township will provide fire and EMS protection and snow removal. The Village will receive income taxes and utility revenue from businesses in the areas, and the Township will receive property and real estate taxes equivalent to the amount of revenue the Township would have received if the properties had remained in Miami Township.

During the meeting, Arnett, the president of Council and a member of Community Resources, said that the Village does not have the funds to pay for the commerce park’s utilities. “The Village is not in a position to underwrite the utilities to other locations,” he said.

The Village, however, does plan to replace the sewer line on Dayton Street, between East Enon and Wright Street. This would complete the Dayton Street sewer project, which was started in the 1990s.

Village Manager Rob Hillard noted that McGregor’s facility will be a “utility generator” and the university’s employees would pay income taxes, providing revenue for the Village. He predicted that McGregor would provide an increase of utility revenue.

During the meeting, a number of villagers offered comments and asked many questions about Community Resources, the commerce park and McGregor’s plans.

Steve Schwerner, a retired faculty member at Antioch College, said that McGregor’s move would have a negative effect on the college, something, he noted, that is not being discussed. He added that if the college were “further hurt” by the move the goals of the commerce park would not be achieved.

Gellman-Danley, however, said that McGregor is working with the college “to make sure our plans don’t hurt Antioch College.” She also said that Antioch University’s adult campuses provide funds to Antioch College.

Judith Hempfling compared the controversy over growth in Yellow Springs to similar debates other communities are having. Around the country sprawl ends up “depleting downtowns and depleting communities,” she said. “Once you see those green spaces developed you hardly ever see it undeveloped,” she said.

But Bob Baldwin noted that Yellow Springs is surrounded by green space on its northern, western and southern borders. “We can only grow to the west,” he said.

Michael Canon, who described himself as a young person of color, said, “Without growth it will be difficult for me to stay here.”

Noting that Community Resources is a private organization using public funds, Benji Maruyama urged the group to show greater transparency, including providing data and research on projects as well as minutes of the board’s meetings.