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May
4, 2004
The Muskegon Chronicle
By Robert C. Burns
Soon after placing its Seaway Industrial Park
in the hands of a real estate firm, the city of Muskegon
has sold its first lot.
The buyer is James H. Schultz, 1559 Getz, who also runs
Schultz Transport, Inc. The company is engaged in commercial
transport and also does commercial snowplowing.
The Seaway Industrial Park covers about 35 acres at
the northeast corner of Seaway Drive and Hackley Avenue.
It is bisected by a CSX rail line and comes complete
with new roads, water and gas lines, and storm drains.
By agreement with the city, Schultz will pay $24,000
for a 0.6-acre lot fronting on Park Street. He also
has a 45-day option to buy an equal-sized lot adjacent
to it for the same price.
The agreement was approved by the Muskegon City Commission
last week.
The industrial center is divided into 10 lots, ranging
up to 4.5 acres in size, and is part of a low-tax "Renaissance
Zone." It was created to help alleviate what city
officials said was a shortage of available sites for
new industry in the city.
However, the lots have not sold nearly as fast as city
officials expected.
An earlier agreement would have seen construction of
a $3.3 million industrial building by Grooters Development
Co. of Grand Rapids. However, Grooters has been unable
to land a tenant for its proposed building along Seaway
Drive.
Last month, the city severed that agreement and decided
to get outside help marketing its new industrial park.
City commissioners chose a local broker, C &
A Commercial Real Estate, to beat the bushes for new
prospects.
According to Cathy Brubaker-Clarke, the city's director
of community and economic development, C & A
has forwarded several other industrial possibilities
for the city's consideration, which are undergoing review.
"There's certainly interest in it," she said.
Renaissance zones were created by the state Legislature
in 1996 as a way of encouraging commercial and industrial
development in underused or abandoned areas in older
communities.
Such developments are exempt from real and personal
property taxes, and the state's Single Business Tax,
for up to 12 years. Other city renaissance zones are
the Muskegon Mall property downtown, the former Ott
Chemical Co. in Dalton Township, and Amazon Renaissance
Zone, which includes the Muskegon Boilerworks Building,
and the former Shaw-Walker office furniture manufacturing
complex now under residential redevelopment as The Watermark.
© 2004 Muskegon Chronicle. Used with permission
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