Acreage now food-beverage certified site

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

A 59-acre site adjacent to Vision Industrial Park is now certified as a food and beverage manufacturing site.

Stacy Adam, executive director of the Van Wert Area Economic Development Corporation, said the certification is the culmination of a long process begun by her predecessor, Cindy Leis, and Van Wert Safety-Service Director Jay Fleming.

“This community came together and worked very hard toward achieving this certification … everyone should be very proud,” Adam said, while also recognizing private sector partners such as AEP for helping spearhead the process. “This designation tells businesses that Van Wert understands the urgency of speed to market.”

Adam said the designation is a plus for Van Wert when working with food and beverage industry representatives seeking a new manufacturing site.

“I think it makes the site attractive to food and beverage site selectors that are looking for a location,” she said after Friday’s announcement. “It really reduces the time and the money and reduces the risk for them as they’re searching for a site, because this is verification that all the work has been done.”

Adam noted that the certification basically assures site selectors that all preliminary work has been done on the site: environmental studies completed, necessary documents completed, and utilities either at or near the site, making the location shovel-ready.

Adam said that the area’s strong agri-business network, as well as a transportation system that connects the area with the rest of the Midwest, the East Coast, and even into the mid-South region, are also competitive advantages.

In 2015, AEP Ohio began an initiative to designate five northwest Ohio sites as certified and shovel ready. The five economic development groups representing those sites (Van Wert, Findlay, Lima, Bucyrus, and Tiffin) worked closely with AEP Ohio to complete the process.

Tim Wells, business and economic director for AEP Ohio, was also on hand Friday to present Adam with a plaque recognizing the state certification of the Van Wert site.

“AEP Ohio is pleased to help local and economic development organizations develop capacity and this program will help make Van Wert more competitive,” Wells noted. “Certification provides an even greater advantage for Van Wert and the other counties, helping them stay ahead of national and global competition. How this site certification process came together should give confidence to those seeking new sites that northwest Ohio has got its act together.”

Also attending the event was Dean Monske, president and CEO of Regional Growth Partnership, which serves as northwest Ohio’s network partner for JobsOhio, a private, nonprofit corporation designed to drive job creation and new capital investment in Ohio through business attraction, retention, and expansion efforts.

“Today, companies seeking new locations and the site consultants helping them, want and demand sites that are ready today,” Monske said. “The certification of these sites adds yet another piece to our already successful storyline of northwest Ohio being a top location for the food-beverage industry.”

Monske said his organization has already begun an aggressive national marketing campaign to food industry executives and site consultants touting the certified sites.

Northwest Ohio is already one of the leading manufacturers of food, equipment, and agricultural products in the United States, employing more than 12,000 people in the industry. In just the past three years, northwest Ohio’s food processing industry has generated nearly 2,000 new jobs with capital investment of nearly $600 million.