This business feature on industrial parks in Kent County, Delaware,
was published in Delaware Today magazine in April 1999.
By Terry Plowman
If you think industrial parks aren't exciting, you haven't met Dan Wolfensberger, director of the Central Delaware Economic Development Council.
Where some people see nondescript corrugated-metal structures, Wolfensberger sees high-paying jobs.
When some people envision nasty manufacturing plants, Wolfensberger talks about clean, strictly regulated employers who inject millions of dollars into the local economy.
While some local officials worry that the multimillion-dollar investment in an industrial park is risky, Wolfensberger points to the payoff: a stronger local economy.
"Industrial parks make a difference, they improve people's lives," Wolfensberger says, noting that just the three businesses in Dover's Kent County AeroPark have created more than 600 jobs with an annual payroll of at least $10 million, and have generated about $15 million in capital investments -- all of which flows into the local economy.
For Wolfensberger, industrial parks create a win-win-win situation: they benefit the community, because they provide opportunities that didn't exist before; they benefit businesses because of attractive incentive programs; and they benefit government, which gains a broader tax base and improved economic vitality.
"The economic development philosophy (behind industrial parks) really works," Wolfensberger says. "I truly believe in it."
In addition to promoting business throughout Kent County, Wolfensberger is nurturing the development of three industrial parks, all of which are at various stages: The newly created Milford Industrial Park, which has yet to break ground; the fledgling Smyrna Industrial Office Research Park, which has two active businesses and two under contract; and the more mature Kent County AeroPark in Dover, which opened in 1990.
All three are public-private partnerships (which sets them apart from privately owned sites such as Dover's Enterprise Business Park): the land is bought with state grants, infrastructure such as roads, water, sewer and electric power is installed by local government, and private businesses then buy parcels of land and invest in the structures that house their operations. (Long-term leases are also available.) Revenue from land sales goes to the local government, which can use it to purchase more land to expand the parks, or to pay for additional infrastructure. "It's a proven concept," Wolfensberger says.
The pristine complexes in Dover and Smyrna shatter any conception that all industrial parks are grungy and unattractive. The 240,000-square-foot Sunroc Corp. facility in the Dover's Kent County AeroPark, though boxy in appearance, resembles a sort of campus, with grassy, landscaped surroundings, tinted plate-glass windows wrapped around one side and chatting workers walking to and fro. Smyrna's Industrial Office Research Park gives a nod to non-industrial possibilities in its name as well as in its look, which features the sidewalks, curbs and freshly mown areas you'd find in any residential subdivision.
Numerous restrictions keep out businesses deemed undesirable: refineries, salvagers, paper mills and manufacturers that use toxic or explosive chemicals, for example. Businesses that are allowed in the parks must abide by strict regulations regarding noise, offensive odors, waste, unsightly storage and the like. Such regulations have helped stave off any major opposition to development of the three parks.
Kent County AeroPark
The irony about the oldest venture, the Kent County AeroPark, is that, despite its name, there are no aviation-related businesses in the park. The "aeropark" was so named because it was originally conceived in the late 1980s as an obvious location for industries that would serve, or benefit from, the giant next-door neighbor -- the 3,900-acre Dover Air Force Base. The park has direct access to the air force base runway, and continues to reserve about 13 acres of adjacent land for aviation-related companies it still hopes to attract. In addition to this reserved land, the park has about 22 acres of land still available for development.
Although aviation repair or retrofit companies have not flocked to the park, three other major companies have: Sunroc Corp., a 350-employee manufacturer of water-coolers and water fountains, DiscoverCard, which employs more than 250 people at its transaction processing site, and Delaware Packaging, the newest company there, which employs 25 in a business that wholesales all sorts of packaging materials, from gift boxes to wrapping paper.
These companies did not end up in the Kent County AeroPark by chance -- they were actively wooed by state, county and local government officials.
When the Sunroc Corp. had outgrown its more-than-70-year-old Media, Pa., plant, company president Tony Salamone found Delaware officials extremely accommodating as he studied potential new sites. Salamone decided to move the operation "somewhere that appreciates business," but he insists that the attractive tax relief offered as an incentive -- which totaled $2.1 million -- wouldn't have mattered if the area had "a bad labor pool, terrible infrastructure and leaders with a negative view of economic development."
Salamone has instead found a labor force with a good work ethic, and has found excellent infrastructure and supportive government officials -- who, for example, worked together to construct a new 250,000-gallon water tower specifically to serve the industrial park. It was completed in time for Sunroc's January 1995 opening in Dover.
Smyrna Industrial Office Research Park
Although the Kent County AeroPark's access to the Dover air base has so far failed to attract aviation-related industries, Smyrna's park has attracted one: Flight Source, a company that modifies avionics (electronic navigation and radio equipment for planes). Only one other business, Avenue Veterinary Practice, has set up shop in the 100-acre park, which opened in 1997.
"I think that's pretty good, though -- one new business a year," said Mike Jacobs, Smyrna's city manager, who oversees the park.
According to Jacobs, the city's main reason for developing the industrial park was to provide quality jobs so that its younger residents won't have to leave the area to find work. In addition, Smyrna's rapid residential growth has created an increased demand for more city services -- the cost of which will eventually be offset by income from the industrial park.
The unique feature of Smyrna's park is its railway, which should make it attractive to businesses that require such access. Jacobs hopes to promote this advantage along with the other attractive features of Kent County -- tax incentives, below-average construction costs, an available labor pool and good training facilities, to name a few -- but he acknowledges that promotion is no easy task. "You can't sit back and wait (for businesses to come to the Smyrna park) -- there's too much competition," Jacobs said. The city sends out a detailed information booklet to businesses that inquire, and its industrial park is also promoted by the Central Delaware Economic Development Council, the Delaware Economic Development Office and McConnell Development Inc., a commercial-industrial real estate developer. "We still need to do more than we're doing to promote it," Jacobs said.
Land for the Smyrna park was purchased with a $1 million state grant. The city has spent about $900,000 on roads, curbing, water, sewer, electric, fiber-optic service and storm water retention, and it will spend about $600,000 more on future infrastructure. As more businesses buy land in the park, the city will put that revenue toward the purchase of additional adjacent land, where it has the right of first refusal on 200 acres.
Milford Industrial Park
On 210 acres where once grew corn and soybeans, the City of Milford hopes to grow high-quality jobs. The Milford Industrial Park, the newest publicly owned park in the state, is the brainchild of the Greater Milford Economic Development Council, a volunteer group that is a joint venture of the city and the Greater Milford Chamber of Commerce.
Like Smyrna, Milford hopes the industrial park will eventually provide high-paying jobs that will attract younger residents. "If challenging jobs aren't available, we aren't going to retain our young people. It's something we've not been able to do," said Chuck Moses, chairman of the Greater Milford Economic Development Council.
Moses hopes that in addition to creating jobs, the Milford park will help the city control its future. "We want controlled growth, not rapid growth. We don't want to change the flavor of our community," Moses said.
The land along both sides of Airport Road in Milford was recently purchased with a $1.6 million state grant, and the city plans to invest about $4 million in infrastructure over the next 15 to 20 years.The city first will install 6-foot-tall berms and three rows of evergreens to shield the site from adjacent properties, then, after a topographic study, will begin construction of a storm water management system, water and sewer lines and entrances. The park's first structure will house the city's utility department, which may move there by this summer.
Potential growth
While trying to attract new businesses to their cities in years past, the largest lesson city officials learned was that companies want ready-to-go sites. "They don't want to go through the rezoning process, site-plan approval, installation of water and sewer ? they want a totally infrastructured site," Wolfensberger said. "One thing about large companies is that they take a long time to decide where they're going to go, but once they decide, they want to move quickly."
The myriad choices offered by Kent County's three public-private industrial parks will be incorporated into the county's economic development plan now being written. "We now have many choices we can offer to companies, but we have to take a regional approach to attracting them," Wolfensberger said.
How big of a boost will the parks give Kent County's economy in the years to come? Wolfensberger declines to put a dollar figure on it, but says the industrial parks increase chances to attract businesses ten-fold. "We do know that without them the potential is zero."w