Former General Motors Plant Slated for $100M Industrial Project

General Motors Stamping Plant Site, Ontario. Image via Google Globe View

Industrial Commercial Properties LLC will soon take on the task of redeveloping the 270-acre former General Motors Stamping Plant in Ontario, Ohio. The company has just completed an agreement with the City of Ontario to transform the property into the Ontario Commerce Park, which, at full build out, will encompass 2 million square feet of manufacturing and distribution space at a development cost of approximately $100 million.

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Carrying the address of 2525 W. 4th St., the former GM Stamping Plant sits in North-Central Ohio roughly 65 miles north of Columbus and features more than 145 acres of developable land, a 50-acre concrete slab and roughly 70 acres of green space. “There are very few, if any, sites this size with this type of infrastructure—utilities, power, rail, highway access, etcetera—that are development ready in the entire state,” Chris Salata, chief operation officer at Industrial Commercial Properties LLC, told Commercial Property Executive.

Chris Salata, COO, Industrial Commercial Properties. Image courtesy of Industrial Commercial Properties

GM opened the first of several buildings on the site in 1955 and called the complex home until closing the doors in 2010. The next several years saw the property change hands a few times, with Racer Trust taking ownership in 2011, and quickly selling it to Brownfield Communities Development Co. in late 2012. And in 2018, after demolishing most of the buildings for a planned business park BCDC, under the name Ontario Business Park LLC, sold the asset to the City. Now ICP is wasting precious little time moving forward with the creation of Ontario Commerce Park. The company has already signed its first tenant, specialty film producers Charter Next Generation, which inked a long-term lease to occupy a 45,000-square-foot building erected in 1984. “The initial buildout of the former press prep building will be a multimillion-dollar investment between ICP and Charter Next Generation,” Salata noted. Charter Next Generation will open at the Ontario Commerce Park in March 2021.

Answering demand

ICP’s redevelopment of the former GM Stamping Plant appears to be a timely undertaking, as the industrial sector continues to gain strength amid the global pandemic. “The increased velocity in e-commerce and the uptick in manufacturing has created a strong demand for large-format industrial facilities, and we are fortunate to have a site here in Ontario that can accommodate that kind of product in very short order,” said Salata. And as noted in a third quarter report by Colliers International, Central Ohio can expect continued activity in coming months as COVID-19 fuels growth in the industrial sector.

ICP, which counts industrial property rehabilitation as one of its specialties, is also looking into building a 200,000-square-foot industrial facility at the Ontario Commerce Park. “ICP is currently pursuing incentives at the state and federal level to assist in the construction of the speculative facility,” added Salata. “It is our hope that we will be in a position to start on that building sometime in the summer of 2021.”