Recordpub.com - Shalersville may get industrial park 480-acre site near Ohio Turnpike

By Mike Sever

Record-Courier staff writer

Portage County commissioners are applying for $5 million from a state grant program to help develop a 480-acre Shalersville site as an industrial park.

Commissioners will apply to the Ohio Job Ready Site Program through the Ohio Department of Development for the grant.

Shalersville Real Estate Investments LLC. wants to develop the land it owns north of the Ohio Turnpike and between S.R. 44 and Infirmary Road. The property is bisected by Beck Road.

Robert Ulik, head of the county's Economic Development Department, said full development of the site would take about $12.5 million, with infrastructure of roads, water and sewer lines taking about $10 million.

No tenants for the industrial park have been identified as yet, Ulik said.

The idea of the Job Ready Sites Program is to help localities have large-acreage sites available for single-user industries looking for locations, Ulik said.

There is a county water line near the site. Sewer service would most likely be provided by the county through an arrangement with Mantua, Commissioner Chuck Keiper said. Details still have to be worked out.

The application already has letters of support from Shalersville trustees, the Portage County Regional Planning Commission, the Mantua-Shalersville Chamber of Commerce, Team NEO and NEFCO, Ulik said.

The state grant program is the same one the city of Kent is applying to for its business technology and entrepreneur center on a former railroad yard.

Business leaders from the city, Kent State University and Kent Regional Business Alliance are working to build a 43,000-square-foot building near the intersection of Summit Street, Mogadore Road and Franklin Avenue as part of a 23-acre site.