Economic Development Annual Report 2016
2016 in Review Hamilton’s tap water placed third for Best Purified Drinking Water at the 2016 Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting event.
Jan
TriHealth Hospital expansion opens
Treasures on Main opens on Main Street
Feb
STARTEK ribbon cutting ceremony
Mar
+350 jobs
High-MLK intersection construction begins $2.7M public investment
Municipal Brew Works opens downtown
Alive After 5 kicked off its second year of events in April. AA5 is estimated to have brought over 4,500 visitors to downtown Hamilton in 2016.
Apr May
Barclaycard earns REDI Growth Award
Barclaycard ribbon cutting ceremony
$1.1M private investment EN OP
Hamilton Flea begins
Serendipity opens on Main Street Great Ohio Bike Adventure comes to Hamilton 1,600 visitors
EN OP
First ThyssenKrupp Bilstein expansion opens
CORE sells its first commercial property
In June, RiversEdge kicked off its annual free summer concert series. These concerts attracted more than 20,000 visitors in 2016.
EN OP
+300 jobs
$26M private investment +50 jobs
Marcum Park construction begins $3.9M public investment
Barclaycard begins operations
I V Y Salon opens on Main Street
$45M private investment +70 jobs EN OP
Spooky Nook joins Champion Mill Sports Complex project
8,000 visitors
Jun
Meldahl Hydroelectric Facility dedication ceremony $500M public investment
South Hamilton Crossing construction begins $32M public investment
Jul
State of Ohio awards Champion project $1M South Hamilton Crossing groundbreaking ceremony
Four stores open on Main Street Creating Sacred Space Silverwing Alterations Pop Revolution The Studio
Hamilton celebrates its 225th birthday 4,525 visitors
Aug
Operation Pumpkin, held annually the first weekend in October, attracted a record 30,000 attendees in 2016.
EN OP
Sep
In September, Economic Development and CORE won the IEDC Bronze Award for the redevelopment of 150 High Street.
We Are Hamilton video & campaign premiers 20,000+ views
Oct
Rotary Park construction begins $527K public investment
Hamilton Mill becomes Kauffman FastTrac affiliate
Nov
Three stores open on Main Street Plumtree Realty Sherry’s Petals Lah-V-Dah
Drone Racing League comes to Hamilton
Hamilton Mill launches Pipeline H2O
Jamestowne Inpatient & Outpatient Therapy construction completed $13M private investment +50 jobs
Bohlke Veneer expansion begins $1.9M private investment
Marcum Apartment project announced EN OP
StreetSpark murals completed & dedicated
Dec
Future Great Comics opens on Main Street
EN OP
Second ThyssenKrupp Bilstein expansion construction complete In 2017, the City will invest $3.45M in a catalytic loan to the Community Improvement Corporation to revitalize Main Street.
Please note: for purposes of this document, ‘public investment’ refers to investment by any entity or organization to facilities benefitting the public
Private Investment
Public Investment
Downtown Visitors
New Stores Downtown
New Jobs
$87M
$539.1M
100,000+
11
820
Introduction Many major projects with a significant economic development impact had important milestones in 2016. STARTEK and Barclaycard both opened their doors and now employ hundreds of people each; these two companies combined will ultimately employ 2,200 people. Several downtown projects aimed at increasing the quality of life in Hamilton will bring new life into vacant and underutilized space downtown. Momentum from the revitalization efforts taking place in Hamilton’s central business district moved across the river to historic Main Street, where a high level of small business activity and revitalization efforts are now taking place. While Meldahl Hydroelectric Facility, a decade-long project, was finally completed over the summer, South Hamilton Crossing, a project over 100 years in the making, finally broke ground. From an economic development standpoint, Meldahl will provide clean and renewable energy at a stable rate, and will assist in attracting companies concerned about the environmental impacts of their business. Once it is complete, South Hamilton Crossing will provide increased connectivity to Hamilton residents and businesses, particularly for Vora Technology Park and Miami University Hamilton.
Mission
The Economic Development Department’s mission is to lead activities that retain and create jobs, increase the tax base, and improve the sustainability and quality of life for the citizens of Hamilton. As local and worldwide economies change, so does the role of economic development. In addition to attract new businesses, economic development also includes retaining existing businesses by supporting their growth and expansion. An important element of of supporting local businesses includes promoting activities and projects that enhance the quality of life for residents. Finally, as workforce development has become a pressing concern across the country over the past few years, the City of Hamilton’s Economic Development Department now strives to provide channels to connect employers and workers.
2016 Highlights
Success from an economic development perspective is dependent upon collaboration between internal City departments and external organizations. Projects that will contribute to economic development goals range from infrastructure investments in the millions of dollars to supporting and promoting community events. As such, projects at both end of the spectrum, and everything in between, are included in the annual report. See below for the table of contents: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Business Expansion Downtown Revitalization Main Street Hamilton Mill Capital Investment
The second We Are Hamilton video premiered in September along with a typography campaign featuring quotes from the video on windows downtown
Business Expansion Hamilton saw progress on a number of ongoing business projects in 2016. Private investment totaling $87 million was undertaken or completed this year, and 820 new jobs were created or filled as a direct result of these projects.
TriHealth
TriHealth opened a $45 million, 51,000 square foot expansion to its Bethesda Butler Hospital campus in February 2016. This addition features 46 private medical/surgical beds and 6 new intensive care unit beds. TriHealth hired 70 new part- and fulltime employees prior to opening the expansion, now employs almost 200 people in Hamilton.
ThyssenKrupp Bilstein
ThyssenKrupp Bilstein, the City of Hamilton’s largest manufacturer, continues growing year after year. In 2016, ThyssenKrupp invested $26 million to expand by 60,000 square feet. One 30,000 square foot expansion opened in February 2016 and the other was completed in October 2016. The company added 50 jobs in 2016, for a total of over 500 new jobs created in Hamilton since 2010.
Community First Solutions
In September 2016, Community First Solutions completed construction on Jamestowne Inpatient and Outpatient Therapy (pictured right), a 42,000 square foot healthcare facility on Main Street. This $13 million facility includes 42 private suites, high quality dining options, spa services, and a 5,000 square foot therapy gym. Jamestowne will provide physical, speech, and occupational therapy to short-term, post-acute patients.
Bohlke Veneer
Bohlke Veneer began a 70,000 square foot warehouse expansion in August 2016. This investment will total $1.9 million and is expected to be completed by early 2017.
STARTEK
Located in the heart of downtown Hamilton, STARTEK celebrated its ribbon cutting ceremony in April 2016. STARTEK employed approximately 350 people at the end of 2016 and will employ almost 700 once fully operational.
Barclaycard
In 2015, Barclaycard announced that it planned to open a customer contact center in Hamilton that would employ 1,500 people. This was the single largest job announcement for Greater Cincinnati in 2015 and one of the largest announcements in Ohio in the past decade. Barclaycard celebrated its ribbon cutting (pictured below) in May 2016 at Vora Technology Park, the location of the former Champion Paper headquarters. The company spent over $9 million to renovate an initial 40,000 square feet of vacant or underutilized office space and will expand into approximately 150,000 square feet within the next few years. Barclaycard employed approximately 300 people at the end of 2016 and will be hiring another 1,200 over the next two years.
Barclaycard celebrated its ribbon cutting in May and now employs approximately 300 people at Vora Technology Park
Downtown Revitalization Several downtown projects that will have significant impact on the quality of life in Hamilton were announced or completed in 2016. Municipal Brew Works opened its doors in June 2016, and there were important announcements regarding both the Champion Mill Sports Complex and the Marcum Apartments. All three projects bring new life into vacant and underutilized space and make downtown Hamilton more appealing for residents and visitors.
Marcum Apartments
The City of Hamilton has been working with CMC Properties of Blue Ash to design and build a $12 million development that would include over 100 luxury apartment units as well as six retail spaces. This building (pictured below) will be located just south of RiversEdge Amphitheater and Marcum Park and would fill the high demand for downtown housing. City officials have discussed plans to transform this lot into housing for over ten years. This project will aid ongoing revitalization efforts and assist in filling the jobs that have been created in the past few years. Construction is expected to begin in spring 2017.
Champion Mill Sports Complex
In February 2016, Spooky Nook Sports LLC of Manheim, PA announced their plans to join in the redevelopment of the old Champion Paper Mill. City staff have been working closely with Spooky Nook Sports to secure financing, and in July 2016 the project was awarded $1 million in the State of Ohio capital budget. The project includes a sports complex, fitness center, hotel, restaurants, brewery, and a meeting and event space. Once completed, the complex is estimated to bring as many as one million visitors to Hamilton per year. This $110 million project would have a catalytic effect on revitalization efforts in Hamilton, given the historic importance of the Champion Paper site and its proximity to the downtown area.
Municipal Brew Works
Craft brewing returned to Hamilton in June 2016 when Municipal Brew Works (MBW) opened in the the old municipal building fire station off of High Street. Owned and operated by five founding partners, two of whom are Hamilton natives, MBW is the first brewery in Hamilton in almost a century. An estimated 1,500 people attended MBW’s grand opening over the summer, and it has proven to be a vibrant location for downtown nightlife activity.
Events
A variety of community events, both ongoing and new, brought over 100,000 visitors to Hamilton in 2016. RiversEdge Amphitheater offered a weekly free summer concert series for the fourth year in a row and hosted special musical events such as David Shaw’s Big River Get Down. Alive After 5, a monthly shop hop on High Street, and the Hamilton Flea, a monthly curated outdoor urban flea market, both brought shoppers to local businesses. Operation Pumpkin, which takes place every October on High Street (pictured right), attracted a record number of attendees in 2016. Other events bringing people downtown include the celebration of Hamilton’s 225th anniversary as a City in September and October 2016. These events help shape the perception of our community and attract potential residents and businesses.
The proposed Marcum Apartments will add over 100 luxury apartment units downtown in addition to first-level retail space
Main Street Revitalization Much of the energy that has revitalized downtown Hamilton in recent years moved to historic Main Street in 2016. The district saw 11 new businesses open in 2016, with several under construction at the end of the year and even more storefronts and apartment units planned to be rehabilitated in 2017.
Upper Floor Rehabilitation Program
The Upper Floor Residential Rehabilitation Program (UFRRP) was a new program offered by the City of Hamilton in 2016. This program was designed to encourage private development in Hamilton’s historic Main Street Business District by reactivating the district’s upper floor residential units. Main Street’s older building stock is expensive to rehabilitate, so to overcome the challenge of finding interested private investors, the UFRRP provides a matching grant of up to $20,000 per unit for property owners to redevelop the residential units above Main Street retail spaces. Currently, two units are being renovated through this assistance program.
The CORE Fund
The Consortium for Ongoing Reinvestment Efforts (CORE) continues to actively work toward revitalizing Hamilton. CORE will begin rehabilitation on five of their Main Street properties in 2017, adding 18 upper level apartment units and six ground level storefronts.
New Business Activity
In 2016, 11 new small businesses (some pictured below) opened their doors in the historic business district: 1. Creating Sacred Space 2. Future Great Comics 3. I V Y Salon and Gallery 4. Lah-V-Dah 5. Plumtree Realty 6. Pop Revolution Gallery 7. Serendipity 8. Sherry’s Petals 9. SilverWing Alterations 10. The Studio: Masterpieces & Memories 11. Treasures on Main
Main Street Area Association
The Main Street Area Association (MSAA) is a group of property and business owners on Main Street who host events to attract customers and visitors to historic Main Street. While the MSAA has been around for years, a number of new members joined in 2016, bringing new energy to the organization. In November 2016, Music on Main, which takes place on the Friday before Thanksgiving, brought an estimated 1,000 visitors to local shopping and dining establishments just in time for the holidays.
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Hamilton Mill Hamilton’s small business incubator, the Hamilton Mill, provides a place for technology companies to start and grow. In 2016, The Mill continued their focus on clean energy and education for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Pipeline H2O
With the announcement of Pipeline H20, a new water-tech commercialization program that officially opened to applications in September 2016, The Hamilton Mill has become the place for innovative water-technology companies to cluster. This water-tech initiative, managed by The Mill in partnership with regional cities, utilities, universities, and other organizations that promote and foster innovation, will provide both new and established companies with mentorship, help in securing venture capital, and a willing beta-testing market. Given that the Greater Cincinnati region has long been home to water technology innovation, Hamilton is the perfect location for this kind of program. Southwestern Ohio’s greatest natural resource is its abundance of fresh water in streams, rivers, and a 1.5-trillion-gallon aquifer, and in 1913 Cincinnati became the site of the very first federally-funded water technology. Finally, The Mill has a history of working with clean energy companies, including kW River Hydroelectric, the developer of a power generation unit called the Williams CrossFlow Turbine, which is designed to operate on low-head dams.
Kauffman FastTrac
The Hamilton Mill became a certified Kauffman FastTrac Affiliate in 2016. Kauffman FastTrac was created by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world’s largest foundation devoted solely to entrepreneurship, which develops curricula to provide entrepreneurs with the tools, skills, and insights to become successful business owners. As an Affiliate, The Hamilton Mill now offers courses to support the local business community. Their first course, the Intentional Entrepreneur, took place on October 13 at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts.
Small Business Development Center
The Small Business Development Center (SBDC), hosted by The Hamilton Mill, continues to work with small businesses throughout Butler County. Center Director David Riggs and Associate Director/Business Advisor Mark Lankford (pictured right) oversaw 47 business starts this year with $4 million capital infusion. In 2016, the SBDC received several awards, including Business Counselor of the Year (received by Mark Lankford), and runner-up in both the Customer Satisfaction and Business Starts categories.
Photo credit Journal-News
WEL Enterprise, founded by Katrina Eckard, is a Pipeline participant working with Municipal Brew Works to revolutionize the water treatment process
Capital Investment Capital investment in a variety of areas is critically important to keep Hamilton safe, affordable, and easily accessible by residents and visitors. In 2016, one major capital improvement project was completed while another celebrated its groundbreaking.
Meldahl Hydroelectric Facility
Meldahl Hydroelectric Facility (pictured right) was completed and fully operational over the summer of 2016, and half of Hamilton’s electricity now comes from a clean, renewable source. Construction on this plant has been ongoing for a decade and represents an investment of over $500 million. Located southeast of Cincinnati, Meldahl is the largest hydroelectric dam on the Ohio River and will be able to provide clean energy to more than 45,000 Hamilton homes for over 100 years. Additionally, Meldahl will keep electric rates stable and low in a time of energy uncertainty. This will have a hugely positive impact on economic development efforts, particularly in attracting large and international businesses concerned about the environmental impacts of doing business. A dedication ceremony was held in June 2016.
South Hamilton Crossing
Construction on the $32 million South Hamilton Crossing (SHX) project began in July 2016 and is expected to be completed by the summer of 2018. This project consists of the grade separation, in the form of an overpass, of the dangerous and confusing at-grade rail crossing at Pleasant and Central
Avenues. When completed, it will improve access to and from University Commerce Park, the Miami University Hamilton campus, and Vora Technology Park (now home to Barclaycard). The first proposal for this project was over 100 years ago. In January 2010, the City of Hamilton and Butler County Transportation Improvement District coordinated efforts with the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Ohio-KentuckyIndiana Regional Council of Governments to make this most recent proposal a reality. The SHX groundbreaking ceremony (pictured below) was held in August 2016.
High-MLK Intersection Improvements
In 2012, the City of Hamilton obtained funding through the State Highway Safety Program to upgrade the intersection of High Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (MLK). Plans for this project include adding new turn lanes to increase safety and help to alleviate traffic congestion along this busy corridor. More efficient flow of traffic through this corridor will benefit both businesses in the city and visitors looking to enjoy our amenities and events. Construction began in April 2016 and is expected to be completed in spring 2017. Total investment is estimated at approximately $2.7 million.
The South Hamilton Crossing groundbreaking ceremony was held in August 2016
Contact Us
345 High Street Hamilton, OH 45011 513-785-7070 econdev@hamilton-oh.gov hamiltonohiobusiness.com
Economic Development Team Jody Gunderson Stacey Dietrich Liz Hayden Chris Lawson Antony Seppi Jordan Schotz Pat Bigler
Special thanks to the Butler County Visitors Bureau for use of their photography
Economic Development Director Economic Development Specialist Economic Development Specialist Hamilton Mill Executive Director Hamilton Mill Operations Director Russell P. Price Fellow Administrative Secretary