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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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