WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) — Construction is well underway on the first building of the future industrial park on the southwest side of Warren.
From the overpass on Reserve Avenue SW, Wiley Runnestrand spoke about the future West Warren Development and an industrial park that can house up to 1.2 million square feet between three to six buildings.
“So overall this is an 86-acre site,” said Runnestrand.
It’s located between Nevada Avenue SW and Martin Luther King Boulevard on the site of the old Warren Western Reserve High School and Westlawn neighborhood.
“Right now we can support any tenant up to about 700,000 square feet and then obviously our first building is only 100,000 square feet so it really just kinda depends on tenant need of what types of buildings we’ll build in the future,” Runnestrand said.
Crews are currently working on the roof of the industrial park’s first building, an $11 million 100,000-square-foot facility with room to expand an additional 45,000 square feet. It’s targeted for light industrial warehousing.
“So it could service a distribution company or it could service a company that’s doing some light manufacturing,” said project manager Blair Mulholland.
It’s a welcome project for city leaders in an area that’s seen little development for decades.
“This is an extraordinary investment on the city’s southwest side. What it means directly is more jobs, increased property taxes and income taxes that’ll benefit both our school and the city of Warren,” said Mayor Doug Franklin.
“People say Warren is dying but it’s not dying. Warren is getting reinvented,” said Councilman Ron White.
West Warren Development is actively looking for a tenant for Building 1. Runnestrand says there’s been interest in it.
“This building’s the first opportunity for us to prove that we’ve got the workforce and that we’ve got the space where we can have those new industries in town and really kind of redefine ourselves as a 21st-century city,” Runnestrand said.
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