Dear Friends,

Tuesday evening I had an opportunity to have dinner with Moses Glick and Mark Frank of Green Reclamation, LLC, the owners of the former Champion/SMART Papers property that is located on the west side of B Street (Note: The City of Hamilton still owns the land and buildings that are on the riverside of B Street).  We were reminiscing about where we were at one year ago last May.  I believe the story is worth telling for those of you who were not aware of some of the details.

After the owners of SMART Paper decided to liquidate the company in October 2011, they hired an executive specialist from Pennsylvania who steers companies as they are going out of business.  One of the first things the executive specialist did was sell all of the non-real estate assets to a company in Chicago (Hilco) - this action was taken prior to any conversation with the City of Hamilton.  Hilco was the company, in conjunction with other partners, who organized the auction which took place in April 2012.  After the auction was complete, the company then began the process of listing the real estate portion (buildings and land) for sale.  Due to the environmental risk associated with a long-time paper mill, the value of the buildings and property were substantially lower.

After the auction was completed, the City was approached by a company from Youngstown, Ohio who wanted to purchase the property, sell whatever assets were not sold at auction and to use the property as "cold" storage.  This is where the City of Hamilton intervened.  The former Champion Mill sat on approximately 40 acres of riverfront property and had over one million square feet of building space.  If the property would've sold for cold storage purposes, then another generation would pass with a large asset sitting relatively empty and not creating jobs or revenue for the City.  That is when the City of Hamilton stepped forward and purchased the property for $400,000.  The purchase was certainly not without risk, especially environmental risk.  This purchase was completed so the City could better control its destiny.  Instead of having a large complex of buildings become further dilapidated with broken windows, empty parking lots and weeds growing around it, we instead forged a different path.

In February 2013, the City completed the transaction to sell the west side of B Street to Green Reclamation, LLC for $1, in return for the following:

• Provide environmental remediation/asbestos abatement of buildings that were functionally obsolete.  To-date, this has cost Green Reclamation, LLC over $400,000
• Demolish buildings that were no longer usable
• Improve buildings they are going to repurpose.  To-date, this has cost Green Reclamation, LLC over $100,000
• Remove outdated landscaping and install improved landscaping
• Market the remaining buildings for businesses

Earlier this month Green Reclamation, LLC announced several businesses starting at SMART Papers this summer, including a paper company with over 100 years of history in the Greater Cincinnati region.

When all is said and done, Green Reclamation, LLC will have several million dollars invested in improving their portion of this project.  They will have invested millions in improving or demolishing buildings; they will have created jobs and finally they helped the City of Hamilton avoid the alternative - a large empty building sitting on the Great Miami River.  Hamilton has only one choice if it wants to change its trajectory - it must reinvent and reinvest in itself.