"I think back, when, at the time, Ford decided to close this transmission plant, that we had made a vow, that we were not going to let this become a rust bucket," said Bob Proud of the Clermont County Board of Commissioners, referring to 2008, when the 1.8 million-square-foot Ford Batavia plant in suburban Cincinnati off Ohio Route 32 (the Appalachian Highway) was facing closure.
Proud and his fellow Commissioners then engaged in conversations with Ford, regarding the future of the plant, and to whom the county could turn.
Then, Ford gave Clermont County a name.
"There's a firm called IRG," Proud said Ford told him, "that we've worked with before. So we decided, (to start) working with IRG, and Stuart Lichter, whom you will hear from in a little bit. (21:30)
"Today, we stand here, now, with more than half, about three-fourths of the building completed, and occupied, and just in a short time. There are communities that have plants that are still vacant. Here in Clermont County, we were not going to allow that."
The partnership that bought the plant, and restored this incredible community asset to life, is the adaptive reuse development team of Chris Semarjian with Industrial Commerce Ltd. of Cleveland and Industrial Realty Group (http://www.IRG.cc), aka IRG, owned by the aforementioned LIchter, based in Los Angeles. Press Release: http://thewritingfiendatlarge.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/huhtamaki-of-finland-finalizes-at-ford-batavia-semarjianlichter-team-from-industrial-commerce-ltd-cleveland-industrial-realty-group-irg-los-angeles-in-concert-with-gov-kasich-and-state-of-o/
"This was a long, long process," the Honorable Ohio Gov. Kasich told the assembled crowd, which included members of the media, the community, Huhtamaki EVP Clay Dunn, JobsOhio President John Minor, University of Cincinnati President Santa Ono, other Clermont officials, as well as other reps from Huhtamaki, Batavia Township, the Cincinnati USA Partnership, etc.
"What we know, in our great state, is if you have good teamwork, you usually get pretty good results," Gov. Kasich said.
Yesterday (Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013), the Semarjian/Lichter team held a press conference in concert with Gov. Kasich, Proud, other Clermont County officials, the JobsOhio agency out of Columbus, and the newest partner in the building (http://www.Huhtamaki.com of Finland, which bought half, or about 900,000 square feet).
The purpose: celebrating the Semarjian/Lichter team, its newest neighbor (Huhtamaki) and the 237 new jobs Huhtamaki is bringing to this proud suburb of Cincinnati.
(Fast-Forward a few minutes to the 21:30 mark for Lichter's remarks, which are .....)
"Obviously a great day for Batavia and the area," said Lichter, citing the "political courage" he witnessed.
"At the beginning, when we acquired this facility, right after the worst recession we've had since The Great Depression, there was no financing available," Lichter said.
"One thing that goes unrecognized, is the local people here, the township people, the county people, and the state people, went out of their way and put up their credit to help us get the financing, when there was no prospect for success. I really want to thank all those people, for believing in our ability to make this work."
Mr. Semarjian can be reached at chris@industrialcommerceltd.com; Mr. Lichter at (562) 803-4761 or slichter@irg.cc.
Dean Miller, who will continue marketing the Ford Batavia facility with Semarjian and Lichter, as well as other Industrial Commerce/IRG facilities across Ohio and beyond, can be
reached at (513) 383-8351 or dmiller@irgohio.com.
For media inquiries regarding the Semarjian/Lichter team, please contact Mr. Andy Hemmer, president of AndyHemmer.com PR at (513) 604-5428 or andy@andyhemmer.com.
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