Foresight, thoughtful planning and a holistic sense of community have guided the development of New Albany for more than two decades.

“Our master plan is a public-private partnership that brings to life our guiding principles of what a community should be. It’s a blueprint that focuses on the concepts of lifelong learning, arts and culture, the environment, and health and wellness,” says William Ebbing, president of the New Albany Company. The real estate development company was founded by L Brands Chairman and CEO Les Wexner and his friend and business partner Jack Kessler, a central Ohio developer.

The evidence of such planning is seen everywhere in New Albany, including the New Albany International Business Park. As Ohio’s largest master-planned corporate business park, it is designed to inspire creativity, discovery and commerce.

“The land-use decisions we make every day must support the master plan concepts. That’s how our business park emerged and why it’s so different from those in other communities,” says Jennifer Chrysler, New Albany’s director of community development.

The business park encompasses 3,600 acres, of which 1,800 are developed. Seven million square feet of space is built or under construction. Nearly 15,000 employees of 40-plus enterprises report to work at the business park.

That degree of success demonstrates how well New Albany collaborates with a host of organizations: its school district, area chambers of commerce, JobsOhio, TechColumbus and Columbus 2020 to name but a few. The cooperation, trust and mutual respect between the parties has grown as New Albany has grown.

“We can attract more businesses which, in turn, employ more people and produce more products. It’s a true collaboration. The business park, like every other piece in the master plan, works in concert with each other to create a top-notch quality of life,” says Thomas Rubey, vice president of the New Albany Company.

New Albany International Business Park
New Albany is rightfully proud of its reputation of being a help, not a hindrance, to companies who choose to locate in its business park. “We’re very aggressive in hitting timetables. We’ve expedited our development process and changed our laws to help companies locate here as quickly and painlessly as possible, all without sacrificing what’s legally required, our community standards and quality of life,” says Mayor Nancy Ferguson.

“We say New Albany works at the speed of business, not the speed of government,” adds Chrysler.

Residents understand the value of bringing businesses to New Albany. “About 75 to 80 percent of our general revenue comes from the income tax on our businesses, and the business park is a large part of that. It helps the city provide a lot of services not only to our businesses, but also to our residents, that we probably couldn’t afford to do otherwise,” Ferguson says.

The business park’s concentration of use has led to the development of clusters of companies. “Our innovation campuses are focused on information and technology, healthcare, and the beauty and personal care industries. We’re also attracting businesses who are locating in our corporate headquarters and research and development campus,” Ebbing says.

These national and multinational firms create synergy from their similar energy and security concerns, complimentary capabilities and shared supply chains.

The business park offers the requisite shovel-ready commercial sites with streets, lighting and New Albany’s signature white fence. But it is the infrastructure that gets the attention of developers.

American Electric Power installed dual-feed electric capabilities when it sited its own mission critical data center there in 2008. The redundant electric service is fed by two underground lines from separate substations, making the business park a stable, secure and high performing commercial location.

AEP also manages New Albany Net, the city-owned 96-strand high speed fiber optic network that serves the business park. WoW! Internet, Cable and Phone provides the broadband connectivity.

Three state highway exchanges make it easy to enter and exit the business park. Port Columbus International Airport is a 15-minute drive away, while Rickenbacker International Port Authority, a cargo-dedicated airport featuring a foreign trade zone, is about 30 minutes away. Three major railroads serve central Ohio and move goods in and out with ease.

“New Albany is within 500 miles of more than 50 percent of North America’s population. Companies take note of that,” Ebbing says.

Central Ohio’s skilled workforce is highly sought after and is frequently cited as a reason for locating in New Albany. To expand the number of potential business park employees, the Central Ohio Transit Authority will offer an extensive new bus route and shuttle network beginning in September 2014. New Albany also is working with area technical colleges and universities to create certification and educational programs tailored to the business park’s innovation campus sectors. “Companies will have a pipeline of job candidates and students will have a real world place to train,” Chrysler says.

The business park isn’t all about work, though. Employees find the green spaces to be a respite. “Our running and biking trails go right through the business park, connecting it to the restaurants, shops and library in our downtown,” Chrysler says.

Information and Technology Innovation Campus
New Albany is attracting information technology firms on two fronts. “Some locate their mission critical facilities here and others (are) locating their call centers or operations centers here. Redundant and robust infrastructure is a must for them,” Ebbing says.

Discover Financial Services built both types of facilities at the Information and Technology Innovation Campus.

“Discover was a vote of confidence for us. The business park was just a cornfield when we initially talked with them in 1997. No utilities. No roads. Just a vision,” Ebbing says.

Director of card member services Dana Blakeman says Discover has had a long- standing relationship with Ohio since 1985. “At that time we had two call centers. In 2000, we began our relationship with New Albany and consolidated them,” she says. Discover’s 325,000 square-foot operations center employs nearly 1,600 workers.

Ohio was in the mix again when Discover began exploring sites for its data center in 2012. New Albany won the bid. That 97,000-square-foot facility opened in 2013. “Our New Albany call center is one of several across the country, but our data center provides enterprise-wide support,” Blakeman says.

“New Albany is already a data cen- ter hub that understands the industry’s changing business climate. They understand that the infrastructure, support and skill set we need differ from other industries, and the business park is built accordingly,” Blakeman says.

Discover’s decision took into account more than a building site, though. “The relationship we have with New Albany is the difference. They reached out to us as a partner and were extremely attentive during both projects. And they share Dis- cover’s core values of collaboration and respect,” Blakeman says.

Healthcare Innovation Campus
Healthcare-related institutions also are choosing the business park.

Mount Carmel New Albany provides orthopedic, neurologic and musculoskeletal care for inpatients and outpatients. It opened in 2003 and expanded in 2010. The 130,000-square-foot facility features eight operating rooms and 60 patient rooms. Not surprisingly, associated medical offices have been built around it.

In 2013, PharmaForce, Inc. added to its Hilliard and Worthington operations when it built an 81,000-square-foot facility in New Albany.

“We’re a sterile pharmaceutical research and development and manufacturing com- pany. The business park houses our corporate administrative offices, research and development laboratories and a manufacturing plant. Our New Albany plant isn’t an approved commercial manufacturing facility yet, but we hope to have FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval in early 2015,” says Stephanie Glover, senior manager, operations support.

PharmaForce took many factors into consideration during the site selection process. “What really made New Albany stand out for us is its forward-thinking approach. There’s an attitude of ‘what’s next’ that is a different way of thinking from other communities,” Glover says. “Since we’ve been in business here, New Albany has been very supportive and fully engaged in making sure we have what we need to be successful.”

International Personal Care and Beauty Campus
This highly-integrated supply chain hub supports companies which contract with major brands of cosmetic and personal care products. The businesses benefit from complementary capabilities, common supply chain contractors and creative synergies.

“We call it the international beauty campus because the companies are headquartered in Canada, China, Great Britain and Mexico, in addition to several states. For many of them, New Albany is their first location in Ohio,” Ebbing says.

These firms are part of the vertical supply chain and represent various aspects of the manufacturing process. “At the business park, they can send a product 1.6 miles and in less than 10 days it goes from an idea to the retailer’s shelf. It’s amazing how they work together to better serve their end customers,” Ebbing says.

Anomatic Corporation manufactures and assembles anodized aluminum components, such as perfume caps, razor handles and mascara tops.

“We needed to expand our anodizing capacity, because we ran out room at our Newark facility,” says President Scott Rusch. “We learned that New Albany was attracting a group of companies that supply materials to the beauty industry. We were excited about the prospect of bringing key suppliers together.”

In 2012, Anomatic moved into a 75,000-square-foot facility that also houses its Innovation and Design Center.

“Locating multiple suppliers at the same site adds to efficiency, speed to market and makes sense economically,” Rusch says. “I’m not aware of any other place in the world that has this level of collaboration. I fully expect more companies to come here and continue to round out the capabilities in the personal care and cosmetic packaging industry.”

Also in 2012, KDC/Tri-Tech Lab opened the doors to its 200,000-square-foot facility. It manufactures soaps, sanitizers and fragrance products. The Canadian company was searching for a centrally located American site when it learned of New Albany. “The concept of an agile, integrated supply chain is unique and was a major attraction. We wanted to be part of it,” says Ian Kalinosky, division president of KDC Columbus and KDC Lynchburg.

KDC’s New Albany operation is focused on growth. “We’ve had two successful years and our ability to expand here is significant. It’s very exciting,” Kalinosky says. The company is benefiting from interaction with its business park neighbors. “We collaborate on potential new customer opportunities, new products and now we’re starting to address workforce development,” Kalinosky says. “It’s very unusual to find such willingness to work together on these types of issues.”

Corporate Headquarters and Research and Development Campus
In 1998, Aetna US Healthcare opened its regional operations center at the business park. “We committed to the development early on. New Albany has grown considerably since then, and so has our business,” says Nitin Bhargava, president of the insurer’s Ohio operations.

Aetna consolidated multiple Ohio offices to the New Albany site, and it continues to fold in additional acquisitions. The 210,000-square-foot building houses almost 1,100 people who work in claims, operations, customer service, sales and marketing, medical management and the executive offices.

Aetna was attracted to New Albany because of the development concept of the business park.

“We also like that it’s easy for employees and visitors to get in and out of our office. The location is close to areas where many of our employees live, and downtown Columbus is not far away,” Bhargava says.

Aetna also is committed to community involvement.

“New Albany is a hub of health and wellness causes that are a good fit for Aetna,” Bhargava says. “You can’t be in a community without being for the community.”

Lisa Hooker is a freelance writer.

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When he explains how he and Leslie H. Wexner developed the fields of New Albany into a growing city filled with million-dollar homes and a vast business park, Jack Kessler makes it sounds simple.

“Back then, Les and I lived in Bexley,” Kessler said of the mid-1980s. “And Les said, ‘I need to build a home in the country.’ ”

The power couple — Wexner is the founder of L Brands, Kessler is a developer who joined Wexner to form the New Albany Co. — began spending their weekends driving the perimeter of Columbus, scouting locations. Muirfield looked promising; so did Gahanna.

“Les said, ‘Gahanna is great, but we can’t do much to change it. It’s already built. New Albany, we can change,’ ” Kessler said.

They have indeed changed New Albany, turning it into a Shangri-La for the wealthy and a home for scores of businesses.

And now, say Kessler and William Ebbing, president of the New Albany Co., it’s time for the next phase of the project: an expansion of the city’s center. The goal is more restaurants and retail, and to better connect the heart of the city to the nearby homes and business park.

“The core is critical to our future, to further the economic development of the business park,” Ebbing said. “How do we attract the young professionals and take the business park to the next level?”

Building an urbanlike core in a suburban setting is the goal of several communities in central Ohio and beyond. Dublin’s mixed-use Bridge Street Project is another example.

These are called “edge cities” and are becoming more common, said Bernadette Hanlon, a professor of urban planning at Ohio State University’s Knowlton School of Architecture. “There’s this sense, this desire to create more walkable spaces out in the suburbs,” she said.

While New Albany is not unique in this goal, “In terms of privatization, it is pretty unique,” Hanlon said. There aren’t too many other communities created by two men.

Photo Credit: The Columbus Dispatch

New projects

New projects planned in New Albany at or near the intersection of Market and Main streets include:

• The $13 million Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany, a 55,000-square-foot hub for health and wellness programs. The city is building it in partnership with Healthy New Albany, Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

• The $6 million Market & Main building, a 27,000-square-foot office building that will include a restaurant and retail tenants on the first floor. It is a joint venture of the New Albany Co. and the Daimler Group, another local developer.

• Strait’s Farm, a 51-home, $24 million residential development designed for homeowners looking to downsize and be closer to the city center. M/I Homes will develop the project on land purchased from the New Albany Co.

• A $3 million roundabout at Market and Main streets, designed to spur commercial growth.

• A $45 million school-expansion project.

All five projects are under construction and are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

“Infrastructure development in the core is so important,” said Jennifer Chrysler, New Albany’s director of community development. “We’ve spent $8 million so far, and counting.”

These improvements will come too late for the Johnson’s Real Ice Cream shop on Market Street. The franchisee in the Market Square complex closed the shop about a year ago, said Matt Wilcoxon, vice president of sales of the Bexley-based company.

“The traffic pattern wasn’t enough,” Wilcoxon said. “I always felt there weren’t enough draws, other than the Starbucks and Rusty Bucket (in Market Square), to get people there. … If they get more food-based shops and restaurants in, that will make it a destination.”

The new projects are designed to develop “critical mass,” said Courtney Orr, executive director of the New Albany Chamber of Commerce. “What’s special here is this is a growing community.”

New Albany grows

Wexner and Kessler formed the New Albany Co. in 1986 and began buying large lots of land for a project initially dubbed Wexley.

The New Albany Co. purchased more than 300 lots, Kessler said, dividing several into 1,800 smaller parcels for homes. About 1,400 Georgian-styled homes that have met specific design requirements have been built to date.

Wexner and Kessler built their own homes in New Albany.

“We started selling lots to our friends, and we identified people we thought were leaders,” Kessler said. “We got Bobby Rahal and John G. McCoy to live here.”

Rahal is a past Indianapolis 500 winner, and McCoy was the CEO of the former Banc One Corp., now part of JPMorgan Chase. Rahal’s home was built in 1995 and recently sold for $2.25 million.

“Then, we had to fix the school system,” Kessler said. “Then we were worried about taxes, so we started a business park.” They also built a golf course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, as well as a country club and an arts center.

The success of the company’s New Albany Business Park has fueled the city’s continued growth.

The business park generated $460 in tax revenues in 1997, the year it opened. The 2013 total was $11.6 million, money that is used in part to pay for the city’s schools and infrastructure improvements.

The 3,000-acre park in Franklin and Licking counties is home to companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Discover, Bob Evans Farms and Accel. There are 12,000 employees, Chrysler said, adding that 3,000 acres remain available for development.

The Beauty & Personal Care Campus on the eastern edge of the business park has been the biggest addition in recent years. Beauty and health-care products are manufactured, packaged and shipped from the 1.4 million-square-foot facility, which includes about 10 companies and 1,500 employees.

“We very much tout ourselves as a community for entrepreneurs started by an entrepreneur,” Chrysler said of Wexner.

The city has attracted successful entrepreneurs and executives.

“New Albany is way above both local and national (income) averages,” said Bill LaFayette, owner of the local economics consulting firm Regionomics.

The national and Franklin County median household incomes are $50,700 and $53,046 respectively, he said, according to statistics compiled from the American Community Survey. The New Albany median income is $161,314.

New Albany seems poised for growth. In addition to the additional acreage in its business park, the New Albany Co. has about 400 empty lots available for homes.

These homes will be expensive. The median sales price of a New Albany home in 2013 was $459,500, the highest in the area.

“Because of the land costs and the architectural requirements, you can’t build one for under $400,000,” Kessler said.

The New Albany Co. owns an additional 40 undeveloped acres in the city center that Ebbing said will “be developed in a mixed-use way, with more of a focus on restaurants and medical services and other retail opportunities.”

The success and continued growth of New Albany is due in large part to the vision and entrepreneurial spirit of its founders, he said.

“Les is a visionary, and his image of what this community should be has allowed us to get here,” Ebbing said.

By Steve Wartenberg, The Columbus Dispatch

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Dallas and New Albany, OH – January 7, 2014 – Compass Datacenters has acquired a property in suburban Columbus, Ohio that will serve as a campus for the company’s first data center facilities in Ohio. The 9.2 acre parcel of land, which closed for $1.93 million, is located within the 3,000 acre New Albany Business Park that is designed as a hub for corporate headquarters, technology firms and other companies in the fast-growing Columbus region. The property will be developed into a Compass Datacenters campus that will house up to five dedicated, Tier III and LEED Gold certified 1.2 MW data center facilities for enterprise customers and service providers. Upon completion of the buildout, private investment in the campus is expected to exceed $60 million.

“We chose the Columbus market as the location for our next data center development because multiple firms have expressed an interest in having a facility in this area, indicating that there is strong demand for data center space in Columbus. We are investing in New Albany to provide companies with the ability to obtain data center facilities they traditionally could only get by developing in a larger market such as Chicago and New York or through a lengthy and costly process of building a facility themselves,” said Chris Crosby, CEO of Compass Datacenters. “Our feature-rich product includes all of the must-haves that enterprise customers and services providers look for in a mission critical facility.”

“Data centers are a key part of the infrastructure for the economy today because they provide the home for computing systems that are at the heart of so many businesses’ operations. Communities that have great data center facilities often serve as a magnet for companies who invest, grow and create jobs. New Albany Business Park is recognized in Ohio as a hub for data centers and other mission critical facilities, and we’re pleased to welcome Compass as it joins other leading brands that have a data center presence in New Albany, such as Nationwide Insurance, TJX, Motorist Insurance, Abercrombie & Fitch and American Electric Power,” said Bill Ebbing, President of the New Albany Company.

“Compass has earned a national reputation for being a leader in the data center industry. We welcome the company to our business community and appreciate its investment in our community,” said New Albany Mayor Nancy Ferguson. “Data centers have a significant impact on an area’s economic health, not only through the direct investment of building of facilities but also through the impact these technology buildings play in helping companies grow and support new jobs. We want the world to know that New Albany is a great place to work and do business, and Compass’ investment here will make this an even more attractive place for companies who want grow.”

Crosby added: “The local government and business community in New Albany have been an ideal partner in this process, and I want to extend my thanks to Mayor Ferguson and her staff, Bill Ebbing and the team at the New Albany Company, and everyone else who has played a role in helping us make this investment and bring this technology infrastructure to the region.”

About Compass Datacenters
Compass Datacenters builds natural disaster-resistant, Tier III-certified, LEED Gold, dedicated data centers where customers need them without forcing them to sacrifice features or performance. The innovative design of its facilities make it possible for Compass Datacenters to deliver state-of-the-art solutions that enhance control and simplify capacity planning for customers anywhere in the United States, serving the vast majority of companies that are not located in the few markets where geographically-constrained data center facilities are currently concentrated. For more information, visit www.compassdatacenters.com.

About the New Albany Business Park
The New Albany Business Park consists of more than 3,000 acres in one of the country’s largest master-planned business parks in the region and one of the fastest growing in the country. The Business Park currently has more than 12,000 employees in its multiple campuses that can accommodate a range of facilities from global headquarters, to large scale distribution and light manufacturing facilities as well as data centers and R&D facilities. The New Albany Business Park contains shovel-ready sites, highway accessibility, advanced fiber optics network and dual feed electric capacity. The Total private investment in the park is currently $1.5 billion.

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The Daimler Group is constructing two buildings in New Albany.

Bill Ebbing, New Albany Co. president, said during the Sept. 19 New Albany Chamber of Commerce meeting the company is working with Daimler to build a 26,000-square foot building at Market Street and Johnstown Road that will include a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria and a second restaurant, which has yet to be announced.

View the full article at This Week News.

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NEW ALBANY — The business boom on Beech Road at the western edge of Licking County just keeps on going, with two more companies joining the development party.

Exhibitpro, which sells custom and modular trade show exhibits, will on Dec. 1 move its headquarters and about 25 employees from the Polaris shopping area in northern Columbus to Licking County.

The company recently started construction on a 54,000-square-foot building to house an office, warehouse and showroom in the Personal Care and Beauty Campus of the New Albany Business Park.

Magnanni, an international company from Spain that sells shoes to high-end retailers, will break ground next month on a 15,000-square-foot warehouse in the beauty campus. It will have 12 employees.

“We couldn’t be happier with the success we’re having in the beauty park, with companies from outside of the state of Ohio and international companies all in the park,” said Bill Ebbing, president of the New Albany Co.

Beech Road, a narrow, rural road before work began to widen and relocate Ohio 161, will soon have 11 companies employing 1,500 people and using 1.2 million square feet of space.

Better than Polaris
Greg Lindsey, the Exhibitpro director of operations and business development, said the business campus in Licking County will be an improvement on the Polaris location.

“From our perspective, we had an opportunity to look at multiple (sites),” Lindsey said. “It took awhile to find the right fit and right space.

“When you look at the New Albany Business Park, it’s built in a way everything is parallel to 161, expansion east to west and not north to south, easy access to 161. You can’t say that about Polaris.”

Lindsey, a 1984 Northridge High School graduate who lives in New Albany, likes the teamwork atmosphere of the companies in the beauty campus.

“It allowed us to get involved in an area with high synergy about it, that fraternal feel,” Lindsey said. “I’ve lived in New Albany almost 10 years and people in New Albany like to do business with people in New Albany.”

The 21-year-old exhibit production company will no longer battle the Polaris congestion, said Exhibitpro President Ed Miller.

“We offer exhibit management, so we store the property and travel with clients and set them up across the country,” Miller said. “We ship a lot around the country on a daily basis, so having good access was a part of the plan.”

The building will be at 8900 Smith’s Mill Road North, across the street from Axium and the first building outside the campus’ one-mile loop.

‘Right investment, safest investment’
Paul Roehrenbeck, chief financial officer of Magnanni Inc., said the business park is the best place to relocate the company’s U.S. headquarters.

It has outgrown its current home, also in New Albany.

“New Albany is doing things very well,” Roehrenbeck said. “It’s a planned community. We looked at options of buying existing buildings, but with the place here, we felt it was the right investment, the safest investment.”

Roehrenbeck, who has lived in Johnstown since 2001, said the company has an option for future expansion which could double the size of the building. The facility will open in March or April.

“It’s important to focus on growth and development they have going on here,” Roehrenbeck said. “Obviously, we do have quite a bit coming in and going out. It is convenient, an area easy to get on and off.”

The third-generation family-owned company produces its shoes in Spain and sells wholesale to stores such as Nordstrom.

The shoes retail for $300 to $500, and its customers live in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Dallas, he said.

New Albany Co. plans
Ebbing said the business park has made a commitment to planned growth, which means adding companies without creating congestion.

“The whole business park is served by three interchanges,” Ebbing said. “There’s many ways to get in and out.

“What’s great about New Albany and our master plan is we’ve taken all that into account, building infrastructure to minimize those (traffic problems).”

Ebbing spoke Thursday at the New Albany Chamber of Commerce community update breakfast at Winding Hollow golf course.

He declined to comment on the possibility of the Outlet Shoppes at Columbus coming to the Ohio 161-Beech Road area, as shown on the Horizon Group Properties website.

Ebbing did say a restaurant would be nice in the area to serve employees of the business park.

“We’re constantly looking at many kinds of uses that help support the office development, the light manufacturing and production taking place at the Beech Road interchange.

“One of the things the city has done has been forward thinking with their infrastructure. Roads, utilities done to accommodate all future growth.”

The entire New Albany Business Park consists of four business clusters, or innovation campuses. They are: information and technology; corporate office; health care; and personal care and beauty.

Each campus was developed for businesses with complementary capabilities, common supply chain contractors or similar energy and security concerns, according to the real estate development company founded in 1991 by Les Wexner and Jack Kessler.

Just west of the beauty campus, in Franklin County, construction continues on the Bob Evans company headquarters, which Ebbing said will open next month with 500 employees new to the community.

“We tend to take things for granted,” Ebbing said. “It’s easy to become complacent. We need to challenge ourselves to become even better. What impresses me most about our community is how our community understands this.”

kmallett@newark | advocate.com
740-328-8545 | Twitter: @kmallett1958

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By LORI WINCE, This Week Community News

Many of New Albany’s businesses exceeded their requirements for creation of new jobs in 2012, according to Jennifer Chrysler, the city’s community development director.

“Our businesses in the Oak Grove and Central College business campuses have exceeded their projections in every case except for TJX and Motorists (Insurance), which are still in compliance,” Chrysler told New Albany City Council on July 2.

“The actual jobs created are far above (projections),” said City Councilman Stephen Pleasnick.

Chrysler said the Franklin County Tax Incentive Review Council annually reviews revenue and employment projects for companies that receive tax incentives. Tax abatements allow businesses to pay a portion of their real estate taxes for a period of time in exchange for increased revenues and job creation.

The council’s chairman is Franklin County Auditor Clarence Mingo. Members include New Albany city officials and representatives of New Albany boards and commissions, Plain Township and the New Albany-Plain Local School District.

The review council reviewed tax abatement agreements last month and New Albany City Council on July 2 accepted the findings in a 5-0 vote, with Chip Fellows and Chris Wolfe absent.

Chrysler’s report said Abercrombie and Fitch and Discover Financial Services greatly exceeded the projected job creation.

The Abercrombie and Fitch site off Smith’s Mill Road has a 15-year, 100 percent tax abatement. The company was expected to create 1,200 jobs and now has 2,766 employees.

Discover Financial Services on Central College Road receives a 15-year, 100 percent tax abatement. It has created 1,809 jobs — 309 more than expected — and exceeded its annual payroll by $37 million.

Chrysler said tax-abatement agreements use different benchmarks, including job creation, income taxes generated or annual payroll figures.

Many of the other businesses in New Albany have exceeded income-tax predictions or estimated annual payroll, Chrysler’s report said.

The Smith’s Mill office park on Smith’s Mill Road contains five, 8,000-square-foot buildings which receive a 10-year, 100 percent tax abatement. It has exceeded annual income-tax generation by $20,667.

The two medical office buildings on Smith’s Mill Road receive different abatements. The Mount Carmel New Albany Surgical Hospital receives a 10-year, 100 percent tax abatement and the second building receives a 12-year, 100 percent tax abatement. Together, the two buildings have created 273 new jobs and exceeded target revenue for income tax by $192,654.

Commercial Vehicle Group on Walton Parkway receives a 12-year, 100 percent tax abatement. It has exceeded the estimated annual payroll by $11.15 million.

The Water’s Edge office building on Walton Parkway receives a 15-year, 100 percent tax abatement. Businesses within the building have created 253 jobs and exceeded the estimated payroll by $9 million.

Motorists Insurance on New Albany Road East receives a 10-year, 75 percent tax abatement and TJX on New Albany Road East receives a 15-year, 65 percent tax abatement. Chrysler said both are within guidelines for the abatements though neither has reached total job creation or payroll projections. The city allows a three-year period for new companies to meet the benchmarks in the abatement agreement.

Smith’s Mill ventures, which includes the Tutor Time Learning Center, was expected to generate $18,557 in income taxes. Because the company did not meet that target and created only $4,633 in income taxes, it had to make a payment to meet the benchmark, according to Chrysler’s report.

Chrysler said the businesses in the Licking County portion of the city’s business parks, most of which are new, also are meeting abatement benchmarks.

American Electric Power on Smith’s Mill Road is the only established business in the Licking County portion of New Albany. It receives a 15-year, 75 percent tax abatement and has exceeded annual income tax revenues by $100,082.

The multitenant building built by the Pizzuti Cos., Axium Plastics and Accel, all on Smith’s Mill Road, receive 15-year, 100 percent tax abatements.

The Anomatic Corp. and Vee Pak on Smith’s Mill Road receive 10-year, 100 percent tax abatements.

Together, all five buildings are contributing $357,041 in income taxes and all are within the three-year period of meeting abatement benchmarks, Chrysler’s report said.

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Didn’t I just publish a few hours ago that the nationwide fiber-optic superhighway that crosses through northern Franklin County is making Central Ohio popular for data centers? Just after reporting that Expedient Communications, like DataCenter.bz, is scouting along the Dublin-to-New Albany line for a second data center, I found that Dallas-based Compass Datacenters LLC plans its first entry into the Central Ohio market with a planned $61.3 million development in New Albany.

View the full article at Columbus Business First.

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Nationwide Children’s Hospital said yesterday that it will join Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center as tenants in New Albany’s health and wellness center.

The children’s hospital, which has provided sports medicine services to New Albany High School since 2005, plans to lease 8,500 square feet on the proposed building’s second floor, said Gil Peri, Children’s vice president of regional development.The hospital expects that 30 to 40 employees will work at the health center and serve 12,000 patients in the first year.

View the full article at The Columbus Dispatch.

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By Robert Celaschi for Business First

Something as simple as a bottle of hand lotion can pose a big logistical hurdle. One company makes the lotion. Another company makes the bottle. A third company makes the pump. A fourth company fills the bottle. A fifth makes the packaging. A sixth packs the bottles.

One way to avoid the time and expense of shipping the pieces around the country – or even around the world – is to put the companies right next to one another. That’s what the city of New Albany has done with its business park dedicated to the personal care and beauty supply chain.

Accel Inc., a longtime supplier to Limited Brands Inc., was the first company to move into the Personal Care and Beauty Campus last year. The contract packaging company was followed this year by eight more tenants – makers of candles, cleaning products, fragrances, bottles and packaging.

Altogether the nine companies, many from out of state, fill more than 1.4 million square feet, brought more than 1,500 jobs to New Albany and have invested about $144 million in the park that allows for production, packaging, labeling and distribution all in one spot.

In the case of one company, home-fragrance manufacturer Jeyes, it meant moving 150 jobs from Mexico to New Albany. The companies’ proximity to each other has several advantages, including allowing them to cut down on transportation costs and packaging waste.

The site is part of New Albany’s sprawling, 3,000-acre business park, which has been under development since 1998. The specific site sits just across Beech Road from Abercrombie & Fitch’s home office. The New Albany Co. owns the land. Columbus developer Pizzuti put up some of the buildings.

up close and personal
Clustering is all about speed to market. Instead of shipping a bottle across the country to be filled, now it only needs to travel across the street.

“The automotive industry has done this for years,” said Jennifer Chrysler, New Albany’s director of community development. “A lot of suppliers are located in Marysville. It’s cheaper and faster to supply parts to Honda in their own back yard.”

Central Ohio’s logistical strengths include being within 500 miles of half the country’s population. New Albany’s strengths include having enough undeveloped land so that the buildings could be clustered around a single cul-de-sac.

For companies that already do business with one another in the park, proximity becomes a selling point to introduce the setup to other clients. Each becomes a reference for the others.

Not all of the companies do business with one another, but having that option for integration opens the door.

Alene Candles, a New Hampshire manufacturer with a plant in the business park, doesn’t have any customers or suppliers among its New Albany neighbors. But it is trying to get one of them to make a piece of equipment that would dramatically cut costs, said President Rod Harl.

But proximity is only part of the equation.

“I believe what we have done here in New Albany is much greater than that,” said David Abraham, CEO of Accel.

He has known and done business with some of his neighbor companies for 15 years. They meet every month to talk about ways to improve performance.

“It’s got to be that mindset that we are here to do something different,” he said. “It starts with trust and integrity of the companies that are willing to work with each other.”

Accel, for example, can work on new packaging that costs a bit less, fits a bit better in a carton, and stands up to the jostling of shipping. The people who make the product that goes in the package – say, a bottle – are right there in the business park to provide input.

“Now these companies can go to other vendors that each has, and figure how they can improve service to other customers together,” Chrysler said.

It’s an opportunity to grow, not merely sustain, each company, she said.

broadening the base
The New Albany Co. and City of New Albany drove the plans to create a Beauty and Personal Care Innovation Campus within the New Albany Business Park, which has more than 4 million square feet developed.

The beauty campus required $28 million in infrastructure improvements to get it ready. New Albany put in the roads, water lines, sewers and basic utilities so the properties would be shovel ready. The investment also included fiber-optic lines.

“We had $9 million of infrastructure in the ground in nine months,” Chrysler said. “We had road, water and sewer going in at the same time buildings were coming out of the ground.”

New Albany has been trying to balance and diversify its economic base and one of the weak spots was manufacturing and distribution, she said. The northeast quadrant of Columbus is home to Limited Brands, parent of Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret.

The first company New Albany approached was Accel.

“One of their largest customers is Bath and Body Works. As they started to look for space and the New Albany business park emerged as one of the top locations, they started partnering with several other companies they work with,” she said.
supplying workers

Accel was founded in 1995 and served Bath & Body Works out of a 1,200-square-foot facility. It grew rapidly and was based in a 300,000-square-foot Lewis Center facility before moving to New Albany in June 2011. It specializes in custom packaging for retailers and pharmaceutical companies, including design, component sourcing, assembly and shipment. At its peak, Accel has 1,000 workers, including temporary and seasonal employees.

The cooperative mindset at the beauty campus includes having the right labor at the right time. So Accel started its own temporary employment agency in March.

“Our temp agency is all about complementing,” Abraham said.

Instead of someone finding sporadic work in nine different spots around the region, it’s at least theoretically possible to get 12 months of work in the same business park.

Right now the agency is supplying five of the nine companies and cross-training the temps so they could work at any company in the park.

“It’s an incubator of a career path,” Abraham said.

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A New Albany industrial park geared for small manufacturers has become attractive to companies unwilling to build standalone production plants.
Columbus developer Pizzuti Cos. has less than 30 percent of its 304,000-square-foot manufacturing building available just months after the first companies began occupying the space in the New Albany Business Park’s Personal Care and Beauty Innovation Campus. Contract manufacturer Alene Candles LLC is moving into 100,000 square feet of the building, and Jeyes Group Ltd., a British producer of home fragrances, will take 56,900 square feet of the building that was erected without tenants signed to fill it.

Specialty packaging producer Arminak & Associates in June received a state tax credit in return for its pledge to take 56,900 square feet at the Pizzuti complex. The company intends to make product dispenser pumps for Limited Brands Inc. and others.

Pizzuti Executive Vice President Jim Miller hopes to lease the remaining 87,000 square feet to a single company.

“We’ve leased up quickly given that we just made the (building) shell available in May,” he said. “Manufacturing is up in the U.S.”

The building marked Pizzuti’s second project at the campus. It earlier developed a 500,000-square-foot plant that was built for contract packager Accel Inc.

Miller said the developer has changed how it designs buildings to include larger parking lots to accommodate bigger staffs instead of tractor trailers. It also has revised building dimensions so they are more suitable for production.

“We refined our (distribution center) concept … to accommodate manufacturing and light manufacturing,” he said.

Matching the clients
New Albany Business Park has attracted companies with supply ties to retail chains under the Limited Brands umbrella, such as Bath & Body Works . Vee Pak Inc., an Illinois-based maker of product labels and packaging, opened a 105,000-square-foot plant this year. Meanwhile, Anomatic Corp., a maker of metal-coated packaging, opened a 83,000-square-foot production and design operation in June.

But Jennifer Chrysler, New Albany director of community development, said not all manufacturers in the industry that have contacted the city have the financial capacity or desire to have their own facility. She said some require less than the 100,000 to 500,000 square feet that many other vendors and suppliers have built.

She said a site-selection representative – later revealed as Arminak’s agent – had contacted the city at the time Jeyes and Alene were considering their options.

“It seemed like it would be a good fit to match up a speculative (multitenant) facility with those companies,” Chrysler said, “With Pizzuti’s vision and (park developer) New Albany Co.’s vision, we’ve been able to meet the needs of some companies who we might otherwise not have been able to accommodate.

“We continue to field calls – perhaps one every week – from somebody who is interested,” she said. “It seems, right now, the marketing activity suggests there’s a need for another facility.”

Miller said the stream of leasing has prompted interest from prospective corporate tenants and developers.
“This building is representative of the energy that’s been created up there,” he said. “We get a lot of questions about the park from outside of Columbus.”

Miller said the developer could decide this year whether to build a second multitenant complex.

“We’re assessing the velocity of the market right now,” he said. “We’re enthusiastic for manufacturing, in the right market.”

Brian R. Ball covers real estate, allied construction industries, development and the hospitality and hotel sectors for Business First.

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