City Council has approved a first tenant for Marysville’s Innovation Park.
At Monday night’s city council meeting, Savannah Allen, development project coordinator for Union County Economic Development Partnership, said the “shell” of the 84,000-square foot Southgate Building in the Marysville’s Innovation Park is nearly complete. She said there are a couple of inspections that need done, but hopes they will be finalized this week. Allen said the building will remain a shell until specific tenants are identified.
At the meeting, council gave final approval for the city to sign a joint governmental agreement with the Union County Port Authority and the county commissioners to establish the Automotive and Mobility Innovation Center (AMIC), which would be the building’s first tenant.
City Manager Terry Emery said the agreement is “long overdue.”
“We are really excited about the opportunity to bring this project to a point finally,” Emery said.
The agreement commits the city to help finish the AMIC and help fund it.
The AMIC will occupy 18,000 square feet of the 84,000-square foot Southgate building already under construction in Marysville’s Innovation Park.
The Union County Port Authority will actually lease the space for the AMIC.
A 10-year financial estimate presented to council details it will cost nearly $4.3 million to operate the center over its first 10 years. The projection estimates users will pay about $2.56 million over that period. Marysville and Union County will each be responsible for half the difference, about $873,000 each. The estimate projects the facility will make a profit in its tenth year.
Officials have said the goal of the AMIC is to support start-ups and emerging companies to encourage future permanent locations in the community; to become the international center and innovation hub for the development of ag-tech and smart mobility technologies; to leverage existing assets and initiatives such as the 33 Smart Mobility Corridor, Connected Marysville, Smart Columbus, Ohio State University and others under the AMIC; to provide space and programming for educators and private industry to grow apprenticeships, internships, partnerships and other programs to create the workforce of the future; and to provide collaboration space for government, education and private businesses to analyze and study traffic management, automotive, smart mobility and ag-tech innovations.
“I think it is an excellent opportunity for us to capitalize on the technology we have been working on for the last couple of years,” Emery said.
The Southgate building, located at 1100 Innovation Way, is the first in the city’s 206-acre 33 Innovation Park.
Southgate Corporation has said it will divide the buildings into sections of about 18,000 square feet and lease the space to companies that want space in the Innovation Park, but do not want to build their own facility.
Emery said Southgate is seeing “strong, strong interest” in the rest of the building. He said he believes a second building will begin “really quickly.”
The city will provide a 75% property tax abatement for 10 years on project.
In 2016, the City of Marysville acquired a 206-acre property and invested over $7 million to develop 33 Innovation Park.
In August 2018 the city completed a road inside the Innovation Park that allowed developers to access additional lots.
Initially, the AMIC was to be a $3.9 million, standalone building in the Innovation Park. In 2018, Marysville and Union County received $1.5 million from the Ohio Capital Appropriations Bill grant to develop the AMIC.