Emergency task force eyes possible new airport home

Moving a regional emergency response team to a site near Dayton International Airport is one idea on a regional wish list that prioritizes local lobbying efforts.

Ohio Task Force One needs a new home, and it could move to the airport from its current site in the Kettering Business Park, according to an application to the Dayton Region Priority Development & Advocacy Committee.

Industrial Realty Group, the owner of the former Emery building near the airport on Old Springfield Road, has given the task force a proposed leasing agreement. An IRG executive said he could make no announcement or comment Tuesday.

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“Ohio Task Force One is an urban search and rescue task force that deploys to high end disasters such as the May 2019 Montgomery County tornado,” the task force application says. “The (task force) has been located in Kettering Business Park since 2005, but is required to vacate their current warehouse.”

Hoped-for government funding would improve the former Emery distribution center at the airport for the task force’s new headquarters.

The Dayton Region Priority Development & Advocacy Committee — also called “PDAC” — weighs ideas for inclusion on a list of regional objectives.

The task force’s request is for $200,000 in a project it says would cost $700,000. The project would modify an existing building, without creating a new footprint.

Global air freight firm Emery at one time had 67 planes flying from a sorting facility at 2800 Old Springfield Road — then considered the largest air cargo sorting operation globally. Emery ceased operations there in late 2001.

The increasingly busy Kettering Business Park is home to companies like Amazon, Synchrony Financial and Alternate Solutions Health Network.

A message seeking comment was sent to Evan Schumann, task force program manager, and Jeffrey Payne, sponsoring agency chief for the task force.

No leasing agreement has been reached, said Dean Miller, vice president for Industrial Realty Group, which owns the former Emery building.

Linked to the task force’s PDAC application was a letter from Miller proposing that that the group take just over 50,000 square feet of the facility.

The lease term would be nine years, with the task force paying a base rent of $3 per square foot for years 1 to 3 of the lease, $4.20 per square foot for years 4-6 and $4.60 per square foot for years 7-9, according to Miller’s letter to the task force, which was dated Oct. 11.

“They have been awesome to us,” Schumann told Cox Media Group Ohio in June, referring to Kettering.

The task force is one of 28 urban search and rescue teams that work within the National Urban Search & Rescue Response System managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

RELATEDOhio Task Force 1 to relocate from Kettering warehouse

“The city of Kettering has been proud to host Ohio Task Force One in the Kettering Business Park for more than a decade,” Kettering City Manager Mark Schwieterman said in June. “The 160,000 square feet of city-owned warehouse space in Building 46, approximately 35,000 of which is currently dedicated to Ohio Task Force One, also houses storage for several city departments.”

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