NCC, a non-profit incubator for materials, technology and economic development companies, submitted a comprehensive business plan to the State of Ohio nine months ago,” said president Lisa Novelli, who believes a hub may end up in the park located at Wilmington Pike and Smithville Road.
“It would be huge for Kettering, Montgomery County and Ohio,” Novelli said.
She said a hub could move into a vacant 200,000-square-foot building adjacent to NCC that the city of Kettering owns in the park, and potentially expand to build on vacant property that is for sale there. The expansion could mean advanced manufacturing jobs for the area.
“The potential for jobs and for business startups is significant. Airbus plans to expand its investment in U.S. operations from $13 billion to $24 billion,” Novelli said.
Airbus officials have not said how many jobs could come here if the company expands at the business park. The not-for-profit center secured a $500,000 line of credit in May through the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority to help the center make the most of its work with Airbus.
NCC has two active agreements with Airbus: One to research new materials and the other to focus on finding and organizing top-tier suppliers across the country.
Activity in the park might eventually approach the flurry that characterized DESC operations for years. The workforce there once totaled 3,200. About 1,800 people are employed in the business park, which has a placid aspect. Trees planted 17 years ago have formed a canopy on some of the interior roadways.
“Forty years ago, if you drove past on Wilmington, pretty much all you saw was a chain-link fence with barbed wire on top. The first thing we did was to get rid of that,” when the base was first turned over to Kettering in 1996, said assistant city manager Al Fullenkamp, who has steered the re-use of DESC for many years.
“The original cost for Kettering to take it over was $8 million. Various grants reduced the city’s cost to about $2 million. We have probably put in another $2 million since then, but the return — mostly in payroll taxes — has far exceeded the cost,” Fullenkamp said.
The city spends about $150,000 a year on maintenance, he added. “If you don’t maintain it, it will deteriorate. Our goal has remained keeping it an attribute to the community, not a detriment.”
The 165-acre site could have become an abandoned eyesore.
“We could have lost everything,” said Dick Hartmann, who as Kettering mayor at the time led a fight to save the base and its jobs, then to capture Kettering’s share of federal funds to support the transition and environmental cleanup of the property and to have the property deeded to the city.
“They had dug holes there and dumped in fluorescent light bulbs, lead-based paint and other materials,” Hartmann said.
“I’m very pleased at how it has turned out. We had one purpose in mind: to make DESC better than it was before. We were told that our transition was one of the best they had seen after a base closing.”
All but a half-dozen of the 49 buildings that were on the base have been demolished. “Many of them had a heritage. They were built by Italian prisoners of war during World War II,” Hartmann said.
Three of five remaining 200,000 square-foot buildings are occupied — two by GE Consumer Finance, which took over space that originally housed a Bank One financial center. Another building houses the Kettering Municipal Court, Kettering Fire Department headquarters and the offices of Ohio Task Force One.
Another, which has 100,000 square feet on each of two stories, was turned over to the city earlier this year by the Air Force. “It no longer meets federal government security standards post 9/11,” Fullenkamp said.
National Composite houses research and development operations for eight companies in one of two adjoining buildings owned by the city.
The Kettering Development Corp., a nonprofit arm of the city, currently has 16 acres of open land between Wilmington Pike and the NCC up for sale.
The city is also developing housing and a park on the western edge of the former base, where the Franklin Foundation will open a 24-unit senior housing center in November.
Kettering economic development manager Gregg Gorsuch said doubles and eventually some single-family homes will also be built on some of the property.
Gentile Park, named after area native Don Gentile, a World War II fighter pilot ace, is also being constructed.
“We want to connect and enhance surrounding neighborhoods and strengthen the housing market there,” Gorsuch said.
Fullenkamp said a new public park “was part of the promise made to city residents during the realignment and closing process.”
The city is also addressing a longstanding drainage problem in the neighborhood.
“We’ve been buying up homes in that section,” on both sides of a creek that runs between Imperial Boulevard and Wiles Drive, Fullenkamp said. “It’s the lowest point between the city of Dayton border and Wilmington Pike. The surrounding area used to be a swamp. It’s the most flood-vulnerable area in the city.”
About the Author