A local redevelopment group will take advantage of Clean Ohio grant money to demolish a 100 year old, 600,000 square foot building in Camp Washington, remediate the site and develop new industry there.
The building, which once housed a slaughterhouse and meat packing operation, was also the proposed site of a new county jail several years ago. The jail plan was voted down by Hamilton County residents in 2007, at which point the county put out a request for bids to redevelop the property. The preferred bidder,
Vestige Redevelopment Group, has since won $3 million from the Clean Ohio program, and another $400,000 from the City's community development block grant funding to turn the site into a modern industrial complex.
The project will be the first major piece in the Camp Washington Industrial Area Plan, a City-led effort to promote redevelopment in a tight-knit neighborhood with close proximity to Uptown, Downtown and the interstate but also a lot of potentially costly environmental cleanups.
Matthew Lafkas, the managing partner of Vestige, said the group expects to close on the 17-acre property in the next few weeks. He said they plan to attract job-dense industry to the site, rather than warehousing or distribution.
"This is an inner city location that should be about jobs and it should be about the community," he said.
The first group to sign on with the project is
Micro Metal Finishing, a plating company located in Mt. Washington that will move onto about three acres of the new site. Lafkas' father, who is one of four partners in Vestige, is also half owner of Micro Metal Finishing but the two men's family history in the neighborhood goes beyond that. Lafkas' grandfather worked in a steel foundry across the street from the Kahn's plant for 40 years.
Lafkas said he chose the name Vestige last year to signify that the group will work with brownfield sites in the Cincinnati region that are no longer in use. He said the demand for land is high, but so is the risk associated with major remediation projects which can have costly environmental cleanups. Clean Ohio grant money attracts private dollars for redevelopment of these industrial sites by offsetting the costs of underground storage tank cleanup, asbestos removal, soil hot spots remediation and building demolition.
Lafkas said the City's community development office, the Hamilton County Development Company and the Port of Greater Cincinnati's Development Corporation were instrumental in getting the project off the ground. He also said the upcoming Hopple Street interchange improvements that will be undertaken by the Ohio Department of Transportation will make the site more appealing to potential occupants.
Writer: Henry Sweets
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