A pair of grants awarded to the City of Delaware will help revitalize a vacated building in the city’s industrial park after Delaware City Council voted to authorize City Manager Tom Homan to enter into grant agreements with both the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Ohio Department of Development on Monday.

The grants, totaling $175,000, will help fund the reconstruction of Colomet Drive, which services, among others, the former Chroma Color Corporation manufacturing facility located at 100 Colomet Drive. Last October, Chroma Color closed the facility and moved all operations to North Carolina. As a result, approximately 35 employees’ jobs were impacted, and the building was listed for sale.

While the aging building didn’t garner much general interest, Ohio Steel Industries, Inc. (OSI) and its president, Doug Hill, found the site appealing for expansion of its current operations. In March, after OSI entered into an option-to-purchase agreement for the property, the city approved a preliminary development plan from OSI for a two-phase expansion project for the site to house its plastic pipe and custom plastics extrusion products manufacturing division. The site wasn’t without its drawbacks, however, forcing the city to get creative in how it could assist the proposed project.

“One of the concerns of Ohio Steel Industries, when we were trying to attract the company to the Colomet Drive building, was the condition of Colomet Drive itself,” Economic Development Director Sean Hughes told the council on Monday. “It’s really torn up because of all the truck traffic, even though there is really only a couple of companies back there. It does see a lot of truck traffic, so they were very concerned about that, and it was not in our budget to truly take care of and resurface that road.”

In order to further sell OSI on the site, the city sought assistance via grants to get the necessary road improvements in place. As a result, a 629 Road Development Grant in the amount of $125,000 and an ODOT Jobs and Commerce Grant in the amount of $50,000 have been awarded to the city to help fund the estimated $313,000 project.

City Engineer Bill Ferrigno said the project will essentially be a total reconstruction of the road, which he noted currently has a poor base and has received little if any maintenance during his time with the city. A new base will be constructed along with new underdrains and the addition of a new surface. “It should last for a long time once we get that done,” he added.

OSI has committed to hiring 52 full-time equivalent employees, including many who lost their jobs when Chroma Color left the state and has also committed to creating $2.6 million in payroll that would generate an estimated $48,100 in new income taxes annually for the city.

“The payroll in the building is almost double what it was when Chroma Color occupied the building, so it is truly a win-win for the city,” Hughes went on to say. “It’s also a business retention and expansion effort for RedBuilt. RedBuilt has been complaining about the condition of the road for some years now, but we just didn’t have the budget to take care of it. And they understood that. We had been talking to them about different solutions, but when this project came along, it was a perfect opportunity to make it a win-win for Ohio Steel Industries, RedBuilt, and us. We’re very fortunate for that timing.”

Reach Dillon Davis at 740-413-0904. Follow him on Twitter @DillonDavis56.