WINNER
Team Lorain County, City of Oberlin, City of North Ridgeville, Lorain County Growth Partnership
PROJECT: Attraction of GreenField Solar Corp. Headquarters
In 2007, GreenField Solar Corp. housed its big idea to change the solar energy industry in a small leased office space in Lorain County.
The startup, which makes solar panels using a patented technology called PhotoVolt for which tiny cells collect sunlight to generate power at a lower cost to consumers, received a capital investment and was considering places to locate a headquarters permanently and expand.
After considering Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Texas — all places with large semi-conductor markets vital to the solar energy industry — GreenField selected Oberlin for its expansion. Additional offices are in North Ridgeville.
Team Lorain County and other economic development organizations helped GreenField navigate job-creation tax credits and find other incentives. The group also linked GreenField to lab space that otherwise wouldn’t have been readily available.
Steve Morey, president and CEO of Team Lorain County, recognized the value of attracting a growing advanced energy company like GreenField. “It builds on the base of manufacturing that we’re already known for and places it squarely into the new century,” he says.
The company’s CEO, Neil Sater, grew up in Berea watching his father, Bernard, a former NASA scientist at the John H. Glenn Research Center, work on perfecting PhotoVolt.
“My father is defined by solar energy,” Sater says. Since he started working on the technology in the 1970s, Bernard was provided office and lab space for research and development within NASA’s property even after he took an early retirement in 1994 to focus on solar energy.
“One big asset we had here was this relationship with NASA,” Sater says of the decision to stay in Ohio.
A few years ago, Sater decided to leave his day job at IBM to commercialize his father’s invention and build GreenField.
He and his father built an initial team of 10 people with their initial capital infusion to work on the solar energy technology. Today they employ 25. In July 2009, they said they would create 200 jobs in Ohio by 2012.
GreenField is in the early stages of a project with Cleveland Public Power at the Rockefeller Greenhouse. It will be installing 20 systems to produce solar and thermal electricity to heat the greenhouse.
GreenField’s Oberlin headquarters, which opened in March of this year, houses business offices and a laboratory where ideas will be developed. The North Ridgeville location will be for heavy lifting and building concentrating units, says Jim Latham, GreenField’s director of operations.
“From a manufacturing standpoint, Northeast Ohio has a lot of resources for a business like ours,” Latham says.
FINALIST
Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, City of Youngstown
PROJECT: Attraction of VXI Global Solutions
When the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber heard Los Angeles-based VXI Global Solutions was interested in opening a call center in Northeast Ohio in 2008, they were quick to host the company’s CEO to show him the infrastructure the city already had in this market.
AT&T, InfoCision, Verizon and West Corporation already operated call centers in the area. In early 2009, after a lull in negotiations due to the global economic downturn, VXI expressed an interest in leasing the Federal Plaza from the city of Youngstown. The former department store had previously been used as a call center by InfoCision. The company moved out after it built two buildings of its own.
Because it is owned by the city, XVI was offered the space at $3.58 per square foot. Youngstown offered generous incentives for renovation.
The company has completed its move into the space and is employing 500 people with an annual payroll of more than $11 million, says Walter Good, vice president of economic development at the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber. Now an expansion is being contemplated. XVI is considering leasing more space in the same building and increasing employment to 1,000.
FINALIST
City of Cleveland
PROJECT: Attraction of Steel Warehouse LLC
Heitman Steel was the first to approach the city of Cleveland about bringing Indiana-based Steel Warehouse operations to Cleveland. Heitman even offered site assistance to help Steel Warehouse, a steel service center, find space near their factory.
“They complement each other in what they do,” says Belinda Pesti, program coordinator for the city of Cleveland. “They thought it would be good for steel production in the city.”
In June 2009, Steel Warehouse, a subsidiary of the Lerman Group, started considering a site in Cleveland close to its supplier ArcelorMittal. The city’s Department of Economic Development made it even more attractive by offering $1.25 million from the Vacant Property Initiative.
Steel Warehouse of Ohio planned to invest $22.8 million to build an 80,000-square-foot building and buy shop plants adjacent to ArcelorMittal. It initially projected 100 jobs would be created. But in October 2008 as the economy weakened, it scaled back the project, spending $16.3 million for the new facility.
Currently the company has hired more than 15 people in its new facility, completed in November 2009, and began operations in January of this year. In the next two years, Steel Warehouse plans to have at least 30 employees in Cleveland.