Green Reclamation Vice President of Operations Mark Frank said that the company is moving forward with ideas to develop an indoor sports complex on their property, while keeping all options on the table.
“We are interviewing different indoor and outdoor sports complex developers and their proposals, going through that process now to select one shortly,” he said. They will move forward with a study to determine the feasibility of a sports complex shortly thereafter, based on regional draw, investment cost and availability, and sustainability of the complex, Frank said. The initial study could take 12 to 16 weeks.
The company is in talks with Hamilton Joes president and general manager Darrel Grissom about the possibility of building a Minor League-sized stadium for the summer collegiate baseball league on the property, and with other stakeholders about other development options.
Green Reclamation has kept the former Champion office building intact, and plans to remodel it while preserving its historical value, Frank added.
“Part of the vision with the sports complex would be to attract sports medicine (in the office building),” he said. The company would be open to speaking with small businesses about leasing space in the office building or on the 500,000 square feet of mill still standing, whether or not the sports complex idea comes to fruition.
Last May, the Journal-News reported that packaging company, Zumbiel, and paper company, NewPage, were slated to lease office space on Green Reclamation's property. City Manager Joshua Smith and Frank confirmed that the two companies will no longer be coming to Hamilton, as of six months ago.
“We were trying to keep paper-making in the area,” Smith said.
“Financially, it didn’t work for them to do the venture,” Frank said. Representatives from Zumbiel and NewPage did not answer calls for comment.
Green Reclamation and the city are currently conducting a joint environmental study of the entire site to ensure the property is free of contaminants before moving forward with development. The study, funded by a $160,000 Clean Ohio Grant, began June 24 in the parking lot and involves inserting water-monitoring wells and Geoprobe soil sampling, according to city economic development specialist Stacey Dietrich-Dudas and Frank.
Hamilton’s City Council voted unanimously at the June 25 City Council meeting to approve a resolution declaring the city’s intent to sell the CO-GEN Building at the former SMART Paper site, where the Great Miami Rowing Center currently leases space. While the rowing center’s executive director Frances Mennone said that the center “very much hopes to call it home forever,” she and the city both said the future of the CO-GEN Building was still “very much up in the air.”
Dietrich-Dudas said that the city currently has no plans for development on the east side of B Street.
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