Underground Pipe & Valve Inc., located in the former Studebaker Foundry, will relocate to a new $2 million facility in the City of South Bend's Oliver Industrial Park, making way for the demolition of its present facility and the future development of Ignition Park.
The South Bend Redevelopment Commission unanimously approved an agreement Friday between the City and The 1100 Corp. The agreement provides for the purchase of their existing building at 1100 Prairie Ave. and the sale of 6.32 acres in the Oliver Industrial Park. The 1100 Corp. will construct a 36,000-square-foot facility, which it will lease to Underground Pipe & Valve. Construction is expected to begin this spring with completion within a year.
Purchase of the former foundry will complete the Redevelopment Commission's acquisition of former Studebaker buildings south of Sample Street. The overall 82-acre brownfield site will be redeveloped as Ignition Park.
"The effort to clear the Studebaker Corridor, years in the making, is nearing completion. With the decision by the world's leading computer chip makers to invest in key nanoelectronics research in our area, these actions take on even greater significance for our city as we prepare the site as Ignition Park," said Mayor Stephen J. Luecke. "In the same way that the railroads, the Oliver Chilled Plow and the Studebaker automobile changed this city, the Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery will move us into a new age and a new international prominence. Ignition Park will compete vigorously for commercialization efforts that emerge from MIND."
Underground Pipe & Valve, a wholesale supplier and distributor of plumbing and sewer equipment, has been in business since 1977. The company has 50 employees, 27 of which work at the Prairie Avenue location with the remainder at distribution centers in Fort Wayne and Schererville, Ind., and in Kalamazoo, Mich. As part of the agreement, the 1100 Corp. will not request a tax abatement. The proposed site is located at the northwest corner of Oliver Industrial Park near the railroad track and north of Rose Brick.
Funding for the property acquisition and relocation will come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Studebaker/Oliver Development Project, according to Ann Kolata, senior redevelopment specialist with the city's Department of Community and Economic Development. Additional funds from HUD's Economic Development Initiative grant will support site preparation at the new location.
"Underground Pipe & Valve is a strong, locally owned business," Kolata said. "This agreement allows them to relocate to a nearby location in order to continue to serve their customers, and provide tax base and jobs to the City of South Bend."
The City plans to demolish the former Studebaker Foundry in 2010.
Ignition Park is one of the two locations in South Bend that make up Indiana's first two-site State-Certified Technology Park. The other is Innovation Park at Notre Dame, located on 12 acres on the city's northeast side across from the Notre Dame campus. The first 54,000-square-feet building at Innovation Park is scheduled for completion in fall 2009. Innovation Park at Notre Dame will facilitate commercialization of all forms of research, by convening innovators throughout the entire Notre Dame community (including faculty, students, alumni and partners in the region) and beyond.
Companies formed at Innovation Park are encouraged to move to Ignition Park, yet continue to receive support services and other benefits from being part of the same state-certified technology park. Planning is under way at Ignition Park for the siting of about 2 million square feet of high-tech, office and support space, including the anticipated construction of a clean room that could be leased by start-up companies.
Ignition Park sits on the grounds of the former Studebaker Corp., the legendary auto manufacturer that was the economic and innovative backbone of South Bend until closing its doors in 1963. Since 2000, old abandoned buildings on the Ignition Park site have been demolished in the state's most aggressive brownfield reclamation effort to make way for a high-tech manufacturing, commercialization and office complex of buildings arrayed in a park-like environment
Ignition Park will concentrate on high-potential technologies and ventures, as well as the commercialization of nanotechnology concepts inspired by MIND.
Contact: Mikki Dobski, Director of Communications & Special Projects, 235-5855 or 876-1564 or Ann Kolata, Senior Redevelopment Specialist, 235-9371
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