CASTLO News!

"CASTLO Industrial Park forges into 2004"

~ February 2004, The Tribune Chronicle
 

STRUTHERS - CASTLO Industrial Park, Struthers, ended 2003 on an up note, acquiring five brand-new lease agreements, four of them in the last quarter.  Also in 2003, the 120-acre park, in collaboration with the Mahoning County Special Projects Office, reaped more than $370,000 in grant monies that will help ensure the vitality of this former home of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.'s Struthers Works.

"In late 2002 the Castlo Community Improvement Corporation board embarked on a major marketing campaign that's beginning to pay off," said executive director William D. DeCicco.  "We hosted a 'Rail Day' event to call attention to our direct rail access to both the Norfolk & Southern and CSXT railroads via the Ohio Central.  And then last May the Industrial Park hosted an open house that featured bus and locomotive tours not only of the park, but the entire Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity."

 

New Castlo tenants in 2003 include IPI Industrial Painting Inc. of Merrimack, N.H., with a three-year lease at the 4,464- square-foot Building "K"; Valley Recycling LLC, with a three-year lease at the 17,500 square-foot Building "H-2"; Garden Scapes of Ohio Inc., which first signed a one-year lease for the Coal Yard Building and then extended it for another year; and Ohio Cast Sales, which is leasing a portion of Building "F" on a month-to-month basis.  Also, existing tenant Drywall Barn, a leading provider of not only drywall but also of metal bracing and other construction materials, expanded from a previous lease at the 27,500 square-foot Building I-3 to a new five-year lease at the 53,000 square -foot Building "C" to take advantage of direct access to rail.  The Drywall Barn together with the Industrial Timber and Lumber Company server as anchor tenants.

Other 2003 tenant developments include one-year extensions of leases with Penn-Ohio Sealing Co. Inc. and Aqua America Ohio Inc.  And to entice future tenants, particularly to its new 6,000 square foot "New" building, in 2004 and 2005 will be a featured advertiser at centerfield of nearby Bob Cene Park, thanks to an agreement with Youngstown Class B Baseball Inc.

Last May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency selected Castlo to receive a $171,000 brownfields assessment grant. The funds will be used to perform a Phase II environmental assessment on the industrial park's western acreage.  In part because a Phase II analysis had previously been completed for its eastern acreage in December, CASTLO received a special Clean Ohio grant of $201,091 to help clean up the former vacant YS&T materials yard over the next year.

 

The grants will advance the park's efforts to earn a 'No Further Action' letter from the appropriate agencies. Instead of having to concentrate on clean up, we will be able to fully concentrate on marketing, expansion and the creating of new jobs.

Castlo can accommodate up to eight new structures, all with direct access to rail, according to the Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity master plan. Other buildings are available to accommodate new tenants including facilities that offer a 10-ton crane, inside rail, loading docks and sprinkler systems.

 

Capital improvements during 2003 include $91,000 in roof repairs at Building "H-1" to make this 15,160 square foot space, complete with large overhead door and two loading docks, more marketable for future leasing; $42,000 to construct a separate 3,200 square foot heated joint compound room inside the Drywall Barn's Building "C"; $9,200 to repair a 300-foot section of railroad tracks and two switches to maintain the industrial park's rail system, one of its most important assets; and about $20,000 in miscellaneous general maintenance improvements.

The Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity, of which Castlo is a founding member, is a public/private partnership chaired by Struthers Mayor Daniel Mamula that continues working to restore viability to the 1,470 acres of industrial brown field that spans the borders of Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers. This land was home to the old Sheet & Tube and Republic Steel Corp and part of the third largest steel-producing center in the nation.
 

Construction will begin this spring on a 380-foot bridge from the foot of Walton Avenue into the center of the Mahoning Valley's largest brown- fields. The city of Campbell is negotiating for land on which to build a new roadway with all new utilities to better serve that area.

The MRCO fronts the Mahoning River on both banks for 4.5 miles and, thus, it and CASTLO with 4,000 feet of its own river frontage, also remains supportive the Mahoning River Consortium's mission which is to restore and maintain the higher environmental quality of the Mahoning River corridor and watershed, while at the same time, enhanced social, recreational and economic development of the Mahoning River communities.  CASTLO actively campaigns to promote the raising of monies to provide the local matching funds necessary to ensure the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' completion of the Mahoning River Ecological Restoration Project.  CASTLO remains committed to the Youngstown 2010 initiative.

 

DeCicco firmly believes that, "Those things that are vital to the improved health of Youngstown and the river are vital to the entire Mahoning Valley."

 

The CASTLO CIC's 23-member volunteer board of trustees, chaired by Michael Kusalaba, has its president Marion Creed. Other officers include Jean McBride, secretary/treasurer; Frank Galletta, vice-president of finance; Paul Stebelton, vice-president of industrial park management; William Livosky, vice-president of nominations and personnel; and Sarah Lowen, vice-president of program.  Board newcomers include George Garchar, executive director of Catholic Charities of Youngstown, Mary Kropinak, manager f Home Savings & Loan Co.'s Struthers branch; and James Mocker, district manager of Lally Pipe & Tube Co.'s Struthers division.

 

Existing for 25 years, the economically self-sufficient CASTLO supports the surrounding community with its own real estate taxes as well as the state, municipal and school taxes paid on the approximately $3.6 million annual payroll of its tenants' employees.