ThisWeek CW 12/22/2011
Space is at a premium in downtown Canal Winchester and at the city’s industrial park, Canal Pointe, but that’s a good problem to have, according to city development director Lucas Haire.
Speaking last week to about 30 people who attended a Canal Winchester Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Haire presented a list of positive developments that occurred in the city in 2011.
“HFI’s buyout of the TS Trim Gender Road manufacturing facility put it into the top five employers in the city, with $7.5 million in revenue and 225 new jobs,” he said. “Rehrig Penn Logistics employs 75 people and added 20 new employees this year. They recycle pallets for Walmart’s retail outlets and added a new recycling plant this year. We also had Staples open with 20 employees and we’re happy to have them as another anchor tenant in the Waterloo Crossing area.”
Nine new businesses opened in downtown Canal Winchester in 2011, according to Haire, making the district’s commercial space 100-percent occupied.
“Nowstalgic Toys has taken over the bowling alley on Trine Street that was vacant for 15 years. They sell 1970s-era toys manufactured overseas and distributed right here. They’ve got nine employees and hope to grow to 30 to 40,” Haire said. “We’ve got interest from other businesses to go into the downtown, but there’s no room. This is a good problem to have, but one we need to work on.”
Haire said he believes there will be opportunities in the coming year to redevelop space downtown and provide interested businesses with options.
“We’re trying to redo our zoning processes. We’re doing a comprehensive rezoning of the Old Town area to try and make redevelopment and additions and improvements easier,” Hair said. “In the past, we took a one-size-fits-all approach so we’re reducing setbacks and other things for this part of town so that people don’t have to come in for multiple variances for simple things. We plan to have this in place in early 2012.”
However, Haire said, solving a perceived problem about a lack of restaurants will be harder.
“Chipotle will be opening soon and I heard people were cheering when they broke ground,” he said. “We’ve heard a lot of desire from residents for more restaurants here instead of people driving out of town for them. The issue we have right now is not enough liquor licenses.”
According to Haire, most national chains require a liquor license before they’ll open a new restaurant.
“Licenses are available (at) one per every 1,000 residents, so we only have seven of each type of liquor license available to us and we’ve already got a waiting list,” Haire said. “In order to get more, we’ll have to grow significantly (in population).”
To that end, Haire said 40 new homes were built this year and Fischer Homes is entering the Canal Winchester market to develop Abbie Trails and take over the Villages at Westchester.
Haire also mentioned several current developments in the Gender Road corridor, including new Firestone and Discount Tire stores and a new dentist’s office on the Meijer outlot, which he hopes will attract attention to the spaces available there.
Over the next year, Haire said he hopes to grow manufacturing in the city by expanding industrial options at Canal Pointe, but like downtown, available space is at a premium.
“We’ve got 1.3 million square feet of industrial space but only 5 percent of that is vacant. Lending is tough to come by right now, so businesses that want to lease space have very few options,” Haire said. “We’re trying to get some speculative builders to build at Canal Pointe so that we can bring (the manufacturing) businesses we’ve been talking with in. We’ve done a lot of traveling and working through the Fairfield-33 Development Alliance to attract those businesses — we’re heavily involved in that.”
Haire has been development director in Canal Winchester only since August, when he left a similar post in Reynoldsburg. He said it’s been a good move for him.
“Canal Winchester has been a great place to settle into over the past couple of months,” he said. “Business attraction and retention are a big part of what I do, and we’ve been very successful so far.”