MOUNT VERNON — Economic development is the catalyst for the Mount Vernon City Council approving the purchase of several Mount Vernon Farmers Exchange parcels.
Five of the parcels include the buildings at 502 W. Gambier St. The other four are slivers of land encompassing the Columbus & Ohio Railroad spur between West Chestnut Street and south of Ohio Avenue.
The city will pay $175,000 for the nine parcels. Safety-Service Director Tanner Salyers expects to close on the purchase in the next week or so.
Once the city finalizes the purchase, it will lease the buildings to Specialty Outdoor Services for $1,000 a month.
SOS currently leases the building at 311 S. Mulberry St., the site of the former Duke’s Quick Lube. SOS must vacate South Mulberry by Dec. 31 as part of the city’s State Route 13 realignment project.
Salyers said that while the purchase helps relocate Specialty Outdoor Services, it primarily relates to the rail spur being part of economic development and a greater transportation plan.
“That was part of last year’s budget. We talked about how we used to haul a lot of grain out on that rail spur. It is currently an inactive spur,” Salyers explained.
“Our plan is to reactivate that. That will get a lot of truck traffic off of our roads.”
Examples of the city’s potential rail use include bringing in salt and hauling out lime.
“More importantly, that spur feeds into Heartland Commerce Park,” Salyers said. “We’ve talked to regional partners about going to the Ohio Rail Development Commission and reactivating some of these spurs and becoming more of a regional logistics hub.”
Mayor Matt Starr said, “Becker Mining’s going to ship a lot of things out by rail, too.”
Leveraging economic development partners
Salyers noted that, outside of the city working with state and regional partners, a private entity probably did not have much use for the railroad property.
“This is how we can leverage our regional economic development partners and make this a transportation win,” he said.
Specialty Outdoor Services will rent two of the Gambier Street buildings. The city will use other buildings for storage.
“While it’s indirectly related to State Route 13, this is a lot more of an economic development move and related to jobs.”
safety-service director tanner Salyers.
Salyers said the city might make minor renovations to the Gambier Street buildings to bring them into compliance with the property maintenance code. However, the city does not plan to “pour a lot of money” into the structures.
“A lot of that acreage over there is in the floodway or flood plain, so it’s not developable. Which is why it’s not particularly enticing to a developer to come in and do much,” Salyers said.
City council members suspended the three readings and approved the land purchase as an emergency after discussing it in executive session earlier Monday evening.
“We’ve been talking about potentially purchasing these properties since spring,” said Council member Amber Keener. “I think this is a really good idea for the city and is something that will be useful into the future.”
Keener chairs the city’s Land Use and Development Committee.
The council also suspended the rules on the Specialty Outdoor Services lease and adopted it as an emergency.
