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Developers Searching for Corning Site Tenants: Zoning Change Gives Hope to Dale Summit Group of Filling Out Plant Sites

Posted on: Saturday, 21 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Jennifer Thomas, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

Jan. 21--COLLEGE TOWNSHIP -- A zoning change by the township has left developer Bob Poole optimistic that the first tenant for the former Corning-Asahi Video plant will be found within the next six to seven months.

Talks with three or four potential tenants -- mainly in manufacturing or warehousing -- have yet to yield results, Poole said.

"I would have hoped we would have had a couple more talking with us than are right now," he said. "People aren't jumping to bring industry into Centre County right now."

The zoning change approved Thursday converts the industrially zoned area to a conditional use industrial revitalization area. That means that the former Corning site, as well as the former site of Rutgers Organics, can have some non-industrial uses if they meet certain criteria.

"What we had before was an industrial site, and if you came into town, all we could do was build you an industrial building," Poole said. "There just isn't that kind of market. We needed to create opportunities to satisfy what the market is looking for."

The Corning-Asahi plant, where television picture tubes were made for decades, ceased operation in the summer of 2003, putting about 1,000 people out of work. Rutgers Organics' plant on Struble Road was idled later that year, when the company moved its operations to Augusta, Ga.

The Corning property was purchased for $5.7 million in June by the Dale Summit Group, which consists of developers Poole, Dan Hawbaker, Bob Poole, Galen Dreibelbis and Don Devorris. The deal included the nearly 400,000-square-foot facility and 160 to 170 surrounding acres of land.

The zoning change, Poole said, means that 49 percent of the East College Avenue property can be converted to non-industrial uses, such as retail shops, offices, restaurants, town homes or apartments.

It allows a master plan to be developed for the property, and should aid in finding tenants, he said.

"(Companies) usually like to see kind of a master plan," Poole said. "I think once we can show somebody a master plan, it will be able to create interest."

Initial plans call for the facility to be divided into 25,000- to 50,000-square-foot sections for multiple tenants, and for the land to be developed.

College Township Manager Adam Brumbaugh said the zoning change is likely the biggest hurdle for the Corning project, and agreed that finding a single industrial tenant for the facility wasn't realistic. He said the former Rutgers Organics building presents a similar challenge.

"Between these two, there was definitely a need to address some issues in terms of adaptive reuse," he said

The Corning project has the potential to replace employment and build the tax base, he said. And he is anxious to see what the Dale Summit Group comes up with, having heard and seen only some preliminary ideas for the site.

"I would think when creative minds are given the opportunity to be even more creative, you never know what they're going to come up with," Brumbaugh said.

Poole said the group would like to see the master plan approved as quickly as possible and believes tenant talks, or even the announcement of parties with a strong interest, in the next six months are very realistic.

He said the personal ties of the Dale Summit principals to the community, and their desire to do something positive, continues to drive the project forward. The goal is to create jobs, put the plant and surrounding land to economically feasible uses and, eventually, to make a profit.

"We knew it was going to be a struggle," he said. "We wanted to see if we couldn't create something to revitalize that facility."

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Jennifer Thomas can be reached at 231-4638.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

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Source: Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.)

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