What to do...
Editor's Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I worked and had an office in this building. So I certainly might be biased in some way on this issue. Also...pictures provided by the Coshocton Tribune.
City and County officials toured the former JII Building last night as they try to decide whether or not to accept it. As you may or may not know, it has been offered to the city as a gift. The former promotional products and calendar giant's building has enormous space...and enormous potential.
The city is taking its time to decide on the gift...and that is likely prudent. But in my mind, this would be a great asset that would give our community a great deal of economic development flexibility.
The building was for sale before...yes. But what kept many away was not the cost of the building...it was the taxes. Though the city would lose that tax base...it would not be responsible to pay it either. If you take away the mortgage (gift) and the taxes (write-off) then you end up with utilities. The utilities are substantial. But it is a worthy investment in our communities future.
What we need (and frankly it is something we need on a LOT of projects in Coshocton County) is someone to take the lead. I think the city would be willing to take on the responsibility if the Port Authority would work to aggressively market it. That seems to make sense to me.
In addition, it's important to not just market this to manufacturing businesses. We need to quit thinking about what this building WAS and what it could be.
*There is considerable office space here...rent that out to small businesses and individuals. These folks could rent the space and pool resources.
*We constantly hear that we need a business incubator. Here's the space!
*The Arts & Culture Alliance might be interested in space for an artist exhibit.
*Warehousing space is a possibility.
*Then you have the manufacturing space to lease to companies who might only need that space. And if we do it right, we can be VERY aggressive on cost for prospective businesses.
The point is...take a good look at what COULD be on this opportunity. It's not one that will come along every day!
posted by Kirby Hasseman at 4:52 AM
2 Comments:
Nice write-up Kirby. I agree with you on this. They charge around $400 for one small office here in Westerville and 9 out of the 25 offices on my floor are used by 1 or 2 person operations. It is easy for a small one or two person company to relocate to a smaller town like Coshocton and people like this usually have higher than average incomes. The best thing about these very small companies is that most of them have hopes of growing and adding employees and they aren't an immediate strain on community resources. With a little bit of help and pooling of resources they have the potential to employ more people within fewer years than they would if left to fend for themselves. I don't know many one-man show businesses that would pass up cheap office space and the possibility of pooled resources.
9:14 AM
Acctept It!
Maybe you could start a basket business there....
3:18 AM
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