• The Wilmer Hale law firm moved several departments to MVRP last year, with a plan to ramp up to 187 jobs and a 10-year minimum commitment.
• Community Tissue Services dedicated its new 94,000-square-foot facility last week, with at least 150 jobs at the high-tech center.
• The Dayton Regional STEM School this fall will move into the former Value City store on Woodman Drive, which borders the Research Park.
“Kettering is a redevelopment city, but the Research Park gives us the opportunity for new development,” Kettering Economic Development Director Gregg Gorsuch said. “We’re lucky to have them in Kettering, and that area has great momentum.”
The region could land 100 new jobs through BWI, but Gorsuch said the project has additional importance because if the company chooses to consolidate at a Michigan site, Kettering and Moraine would lose their existing 206 jobs.
“Those are high-tech, high-paying jobs for sure — primarily engineers and company administration,” Gorsuch said. “(BWI) did look at several sites in Ohio and Michigan. It was a very competitive process, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure it comes to Kettering.”
Bruce Pearson, chief executive of Miami Valley Research Park, said he is “very optimistic” that the company will expand in Kettering. He confirmed that the BWI project is the same that local development officials have referred to as “Project NACEC” since April 2010.
“This is very large,” Pearson said. “The important element here is that it retains a technology, an automotive technology, that was started in the Dayton area 80, 90 years ago by Charles F. Kettering and others.”
Gorsuch said that even if Kettering lands the BWI expansion, it’s too early to know whether any of the jobs would be hired locally, or if the Brighton, Mich., employees would transfer here.
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