CASTLO News!

"Brownfield 'Recycling' is Productive at CASTLO"

~ January, 2005, The Business Journal
 

William DeCicco
Executive Director, CASTLO

Reclamation of brownfields - abandoned or under-utilized industrial properties - is recycling on a grand scale. It generates new jobs and sources of revenue, renews community vitality, and safeguards rural and suburban greenfields.

Just ask the CASTLO Community Improvement Corporations 18 tenants, seven of whom signed new leases in the past two years.

Collectively these eight tenants added 40 new jobs in 2004, bringing the industrial park's annual payroll to more than $4 million.

Brownfield reclamation, now fashionable nationally, has impacted multiple sites in the vicinity of CASTLO industrial park. Youngstown Performance Place welcomed expansions for Exal and Cantar Polyair; Lowellville attracted two expanding businesses. Screen Technologies and Garland Welding; and in Campbell, Allegheny Heat Treat and Impact Metals Corporation now operate at Casey Industrial Park.

Such progress came via confronting and overcoming environmental hurdles, concerns and misperceptions. The federal and state environmental protection agencies assisted with programs that encourage economically viable clean-ups and promote efficient re-use of land and infrastructure.

Participation in these programs - godsends to CASTLO and the Mahoning Valley - dovetails with the goals of the Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity. CASTLO is a key player in the multi-jurisdictional public/private partnership that strives to redevelop 1,470 acres of industrial brownfields along 4.5 miles of the Mahoning River that flows through Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers.

In November, a $171,000 federal grant was activated for an environmental assessment on CASTLO's western 80 acres. Also activated was a state grant in the amount of $201,091 to help fund remediation of the park's easternmost vacant 40 acres.

This year CASTLO and the Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity intended to pursue additional state funding to remediate any problems identified during the ongoing environmental assessments.

Continued coordination with these environmental agencies will been able CASTLO and the river corridor partnership to earn official "No Further Action" and "Covenant Not to Sure" letters. CASTLO hopes that within two years all environmental issues will be resolved so that priorities can shift from clean-up to development.

CASTLO's 2004 capital improvements included a $90,000 upgrade of an entrance parcel building, now suitable for occupancy with a small office, restroom facilities, overhead lighting, heat, a large overhead door and three- phase electrical service.

The industrial park also upgraded a 650-foot section of its railroad tracks. In 2004, CASTLO's direct rail access benefited anchor tenants Industrial Timber & Lumber Company and Drywall Barn. Nearly 400 rail cars stopped at the park, thanks to the Ohio Central shortline that affords CASTLO lease-holders access to two Class One rail carriers, the Norfolk & Southern and CSXT.

This summer CASTLO will complete construction of a 380-foot bridge from Walton Avenue to the brownfield corridor's center. Ground was broken in September for the bridge, which will facilitate riverfront economic development in Campbell.

With 4,400 feet of frontage on the Mahoning River, CASTLO works actively with the Mahoning River Consortium to foster relationships between environmentally-aware businesses, and promote the waterway, which is planned for eventual restoration by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Further, as part of its commitment to the Youngstown 2010 regional initiative, CASTLO is a participant on that organization's Natural Amenities subcommittee.

CASTLO, a good neighbor for 25 years, is financially self-sufficient. The industrial park supports the surrounding community with its own real estate taxes as well as the state, municipal and school taxes paid by its tenants' 150 employees.