MOUNT VERNON — After two years of discussing Cooper Progress Park with Schlumberger officials, Knox County Land Bank President Jeff Gottke was stunned to learn the complex has to come up with a new name.
The 47-acre industrial complex will now be known as Heartland Commerce Park.
Since 1833, when brothers Charles and Elias Cooper started their foundry, the location on North Sandusky Street has had a connection to the Cooper family. As the company expanded, merged, and acquired other companies, it retained the Cooper name in some form for more than 100 years.
Although locals still referred to the complex as “Cooper’s,” the connection was severed when Cooper Cameron sold the Mount Vernon plant to Rolls-Royce in 1999. Siemens Energy leased the complex from Cooper Cameron and then transferred the lease to the Knox County Land Bank in 2020.
Cooper Cameron agreed to sell the complex to the land bank, and the land bank rebranded the site as Cooper Progress Park. However, Schlumberger acquired Cameron International in 2015, which is how Schlumberger officials became involved in negotiations with deed transfers and other issues.
Schlumberger has now refused to let Cooper Progress Park stand, despite two years of using the name during negotiations. Schlumberger has also prohibited using initials and references to Bessemer or other previous names.
Land bank officials and members of the Cooper Park Development Co., the entity that handles day-to-day operations at the complex, scrambled to find a new name in time to meet the deadline for filing a final plat review with the city’s Municipal Planning Commission on Nov. 10.
Final plat approval is critical to the ability to issue deeds, which, in turn, is critical to selling parcels. Gottke has previously said that the inability to provide deeds has deterred some parties who expressed interest in locating in the industrial park.
In September 2021, Ohio Mint began operations in the complex under a lease-to-own agreement. The company exercised its option to buy and paid a $150,000 down payment in August.
Gottke said the new name, Heartland Commerce Park, refers to Knox County being in the heart of Ohio and the state being in the country’s heartland. Commerce refers to the activity that will occur in the park.
