(upbeat music) (graphic pops) (upbeat music fading) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal," I'm Steve Kendall.

Lima and the Allen County area, the region, have become part of Ohio's go-to spots for growing the economy.

What makes this area so attractive to businesses that are already there and ones who wanna come here?

We're joined by Cynthia Leis and David Stratton, I want to welcome you both to the show today to talk about this.

Cindy, talk about kind of the background of AEDG, and you call it "edge", I guess.

Give us a little history about how it got to where it is today, how it started.

Because normally with economic development, counties, regions, go through a whole series of different groups and things, and then we're here in 2025 with AEDG.

So talk about how we got to where we are today.

- Well, what you find today is many of the county economic development offices are organized differently across the region.

But AEDG has been around since 1993.

- [Steve] Oh, wow.

- And we're a private nonprofit economic development carrying out economic development in Allen County.

- [Steve] Okay.

- And primarily was started with the county commissioners.

And so we have an agreement with the county commissioners, as well as many of the surrounding townships and some of the cities across Allen County.

But then the private part of our organizations is our private industry that helps fund our organization.

- [Steve] Yeah, because I noticed, I was looking online, you had a list of, you know, the board members and it covers the various jurisdictions.

You've got a township representative, city, county, et cetera, et cetera.

But then a lot of, as you said, a lot of private partners as well.

How do you go about doing that?

When you go to assemble partners and things like that, do you go out and recruit people?

Do they come to you?

How does that whole process work?

- Well, we do have a 13 member board.

And, as you mentioned, it is quite diversified from public-private representation.

So we start and make sure that we're organized properly with both private and public.

- Yeah, and in terms of, but, David, you were, at one time, part of this group, you're now part of an even larger group.

We're talking about the Greater LIMA Region, Regional Partnership.

Talk a little bit about that organization and what it does.

It's very similar, but it's spread over a larger area.

- Yeah, thanks first, Steve, for having us on.

- [Steve] Sure.

- And I worked with Allen Economic Development Group from 2015, became president in 2019, and then transitioned, this last year, to the Greater LIMA Region organization.

The concept really was that both economic development organizations would be focused on the task of development, but kind of would look more at different things.

Whereas, AEDG would really focus on the business development pieces.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- [David] And we would then focus more on economic development and community development pieces.

And we would also look at it as a regional type perspective.

And we've talked a little bit, Steve, about just the importance of having partnerships with the large organizations like RGP, Regional Growth Partnership, which is a 17 county area.

Then you would narrow it down to the Greater LIMA Region, which is an eight county area, focused primarily on Allen County, but working with the economic development individuals from those other seven counties.

But we're strictly private, so we work with private business, private organizations.

- [Steve] Ah.

- Whereas, AEDG has a combination of public-private people on the board.

Right?

- [Cynthia] Right.

- Yeah, 'cause one of the things over time since we've been doing the show, and it's been, you know, a number of years, groups have come together, because what you would see would be one jurisdiction taking business from another and it became, it's like basically everybody was racing to do that.

These organizations gotta bring people together, so you're not cherry-picking from each other, you're bringing newer groups in, and newer businesses, newer organizations.

What are some of the tools that you would have to offer, Cindy, if I'm a prospective business partner or someone whose saying, "Gee, we're looking for a place to locate," what would be the thing that would attract me to Lima?

What are some of the things you would offer?

- Well, for prospects, and we are having a lot of companies look at Lima-Allen County right now, and, you know, it's our location for one thing.

It's I-75, it's our utilities that we have.

But, you know, those are the tools and the resources we throw out.

We have available land with utilities on site, and so that's the first thing we have to offer.

And then, we have a pretty good package of incentives as well, and incentives could be helping with financing, grants, property tax abatement, sales tax abatements, training.

We have a wonderful OhioMeansJobs Allen County facility that helps with business or with workforce development.

So we have a pretty extensive list of resources and tools for attraction projects.

- [Steve] Yeah, now one of the things you mentioned, I know, and it's one of those elements that people hear about and they don't understand how it works, but try to explain if you can, I know it's difficult, how tax abatement works.

Because people a lot of times think that, "Oh, that's a giveaway to the company coming in," or the business, or whoever, that "they're getting a free ride.

They're not paying taxes.

I have to pay, why don't they have to pay?"

So talk a little about how tax abatement works so that people get a feel for the way it really is versus the myths about it or the misconceptions.

- [Cynthia] Yeah, well, the first thing is that property tax that's already there, that's gonna continue.

The only thing that's abated is any of the new, new infrastructure.

When the county auditor goes out and does an assessment on a brand new facility, let's say, that's the property tax that will be abated at various different levels, percentage levels.

So it is a tool, while some people may think it would take away from the property tax value.

It doesn't.

- [Steve] It does not, okay.

- It adds to, because if the company never comes, there would never be that tax to even begin with of the increase.

And so we've gotten really good at selling these types of incentives.

And what I mean by that is we're pro-business.

And so our townships, our cities, they're becoming a lot more pro-business, and they realize that other counties are doing the same thing, so it's a tool that we really have to exercise.

But we do it with caution, of course.

We make sure that we vet the company properly and we know that it's set at the appropriate percentage.

- Yeah, and I guess the bottom line is people have to understand, I believe, that everyone is made whole.

It's just that at the front end, it seems as if, "Oh, wait a minute, they're getting this benefit without having to pay," and the reality is that's not the case.

So good, yeah, thank you for explaining that.

- [Cynthia] Right, and, over time, then they get 100% abatement.

If it's a 10-year abatement, after 10 years, then it's full up.

- [Steve] It's full, okay.

- [Cynthia] And they're reviewed annually.

That's one thing that people don't understand.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- [Cynthia] Those companies and those metrics are reviewed annually, and there's various ways of canceling them, modify them, or letting them continue on with the abatement.

- [Steve] Now from the private side, with regard to your group, what are the sort of things that you offer people, or what, when you go out to or people come to you and ask, "So why am I talking to you?"

basically?

- Steve, real quick, let me just also join Cindy.

The importance of tax abatements are critical, because many of these companies could go elsewhere.

- [Steve] Sure.

- And if we don't provide these incentives, they will choose to invest in other areas around the country, really.

- [Steve] Right.

- As far as other resources, we're not bashful, we're gonna go and we're gonna try to find some support from JobsOhio.

- [Steve] Okay.

- Which is associated with RGP.

They bring different resources to the table.

We're gonna look at the Ohio Department of Development and what they could bring to the table.

What about looking at ODOT?

What about the Toledo Port Authority?

Which we work closely with, because we oversee the Allen County Port Authority, and that relationship brings a lot of different incentives that can help move a project forward.

- Yeah, now, when we come back, as we're at the end of this segment, let's talk about the Port Authority, because people are saying, well, when you hear port, you immediately think water, and let's face it, Lima, last time I looked, isn't on the shore of Lake Erie or the Atlantic Ocean.

So we could talk about what a port authority is, because a lot of those terms float around out there and people are like, "Well, I hear that, but what does it mean to me?"

Back in just a moment with Cynthia Leis and David Stratton here on "The Journal."

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal."

We're here with Cynthia Leis and David Stratton, and we're talking economic development and economic activities in Lima from a couple of different perspectives.

Cynthia, when we left that last segment, we talked a little bit about the Lima Port Authority, and I know people sometimes look at a port authority and think water, but the reality is that's a governmental construct through the the state of Ohio, the Ohio revised code, that allows you to have more tools that, again, help businesses and attract business to the area.

So talk about what a port authority is in an area where they aren't on the water.

- Right, so the Allen County Port Authority has been around for many years.

I think it goes back to 1962, and it was established by the county commissioners.

And AEDG manages the Port Authority, so there are a lot of tools that the Port Authority can do that AEDG can't necessarily do.

- [Steve] Okay, and what would some of those be?

- Some of those, I mean, what the Port Authority can do is we own property.

We can buy and sell property, we can have options with land owners.

So that's the number one reason why we think a port authority is very beneficial to our businesses, and then the attraction of businesses.

But we also have tools like a sales tax abatement.

And that is if you have a relationship and you have the right appropriate paperwork in place, you can work with the Port Authority, and, under construction, your construction materials can be sales tax exempt for a certain amount of period of time.

So that is also part of an incentive in working with a port authority.

- Yeah, now, and, of course, as David mentioned too, that has to be part of the package, because everybody else has something similar to that, whether it's, well, here in Ohio, obviously, but other states, national, federal, all of those things, other places have incentive packages.

So to have those tools is very important to you, obviously.

- [Cynthia] Right, and the Port Authority can also be recipients of state and federal grants.

- [Steve] Okay.

- [Cynthia] Where a lot of times AEDG, as a private nonprofit organization, cannot be a recipient of grants.

So a lot of our grants filter through the Port Authority, and that might be grants for road improvement projects, water/sewer projects, so that's another major advantage of having a port authority.

- Yeah, because recently, just a few miles north of us, there's a data center going in.

And the Wood County Port Authority basically could move on putting in a large roundabout- - [Cynthia] Yes, absolutely.

- [Steve] Much faster than if it would've gone through all of the other processes because they had the capability, and the resources, and the jurisdiction to do it.

Something would've taken probably a year or two in processing a normal thing was done in like six months or less, so that's the advantage you see then.

Now, from the private side of it, we talked a little about some of the incentives and some of the tools.

You obviously work with the Port Authority too.

You come to them and say, "Okay, hey, here's some things you can do for us.

We've got a potential client."

What does that process work, like if I come to you and say, "Here's what I need," you approach them and say, "Here's how we need the Port Authority to interact with you"?

- You know, honestly, Steve, it's so important for us.

We pride ourselves in collaboration with other organizations.

So Cindy mentioned the Allen County Port Authority, the Toledo Port Authority is a beautiful partner.

Thomas Winston is the director there.

Thomas does outstanding, well, they bring different resources to the table.

And we then join with the private sector and join with the public sector, like the Toledo Port Authority or with JobsOhio.

We do a lot of work with a gentleman by the name of Rex Huffman.

Rex Huffman is here locally at Wood County.

Outstanding support system that we have there.

But then our goal would be, how can we bring all the private sector, there's upwards to 75 different businesses that have contributed to this, so that they can say, "Where is there a gap?

What kind of money could be helpful to move a project?"

Cindy will go out, she's done a beautiful job of looking at options on land in Allen County on the north side and the south side, upwards to 300, 400, 500 acres where you have option on land.

Well, she has to then work with all these partners.

We bring the private sector to the table to say, "Hey, how can we help?

How can we be an advocate for you?

How can we bring some extra monies to the table?"

And then, what other resources through the Ohio Department of Development, or Toledo Port Authority, JobsOhio, might there be to be able to move a project forward?

And, to be honest, we've found a lot of success with that.

- [Steve] Yeah, now, it's interesting, too, when you talk about having options, one of the things with the whole collaboration-cooperation situation, the fact is, you know, the I-75 corridor runs the length of the state.

And I believe there's more now cooperation to say, "Look, here's what would work best in the Lima area.

This might work better if we put it in Toledo, because of logistics or something like that."

That sort of thing goes on a lot now.

Where, back in the day, everybody would've been, "Well, I'm not telling them what's going on in my, you know, I don't want them to know."

That doesn't happen as much anymore.

There's much more collaboration, cooperation, so that Ohio gets everything it can get.

Regardless of where it gets located, it comes to Ohio.

- [Cynthia] Right, because from a regional perspective, we know that there are no county lines.

- [Steve] Right - [Cynthia] You know, when a prospect's looking at Allen County, they're really looking at the region, like the Greater Lima of region.

So while we still may all be competitive because we all have good sites, we do benefit from any of those counties that bring an attraction project in.

- [Steve] Yeah, 'cause there's discussions along any transportation corridor about what would work best in a certain location versus another location.

And to make sure that everybody basically compliments each other in a way too, that some things work better in certain areas.

One area that you mentioned, earlier on, is workforce development.

Because one of the things that I've heard for years doing this is workforce development so important.

Ohio, to some degree, I wouldn't say struggles with it, but there's always that, "We need to develop the workforce more.

We need more people.

We need more people with these skills."

When you look at what's available to people when they come to you in Lima or in Allen County, what can you say to them about workforce, and the skill sets, and the number of people, the area you can draw skilled workers from?

- [Cynthia] Right, well, first of all, in Allen County, we have an OhioMeansJobs Allen County facility, and they do a great job at recruiting, and interviewing, and vetting potential employees.

And we can cast then our net a little further out into the seven county region as well, so there's a lot of resources that they provide.

And and our companies that are looking at Lima-Allen County, they wanna know, "What does your pool of workers look like?

What kind of skill levels do they have?"

And we rely on our OhioMeansJobs to do a lot of that.

- [David] Can I run with that just a little bit too, Steve?

- [Steve] Sure, absolutely.

- [David] So when you look at Lima, Ohio, population's about 35,000 population.

The four townships takes it to 75,000 population.

If you go into the eight county area, it runs at about 400,000 population.

And if you go out 60 miles in a radius, we like to think Lima is at the center of Ohio and the center of the United States, right?

- [Steve] Everything revolves around it, okay.

- [Cynthia] Yes.

- [David] You look at Toledo, Fort Wayne, Dayton, Mansfield, now you run at about a million population.

- [Steve] Okay.

- So when you're talking workforce, people will travel, right?

So 20 miles, 30 miles in.

We don't look at it as Allen County and saying, "That is a 1,000, 2,000 population."

No, it's much greater than that, not only for workforce, but also the attraction of businesses.

- [Steve] Right, right, yeah.

And when we come back, 'cause I know, again, we're at the end of this segment, but obviously, too, the transportation access, because I know when I was looking through some of the material it talks about, of course, I-75, but, in some cases, you have rail access, you've got other ways, and an airport, things like that that come into play, too, that make it, again, easier for businesses to do what they wanna do.

Back in just a moment with Cynthia Leis and David Stratton here on "The Journal."

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Cynthia Leis and David Stratton, and we're talking about economic development and economic activity in Lima and the Lima region.

Cynthia, when we kind of left that last segment, we were talking about some of the logistical attributes, because companies want access in any variety of ways, whether it's transportation, by land, whatever, rail, things like that, and Lima has all of that in place.

You have I-75 obviously, but you've got an airport, you've got those other tools that gives people more opportunities, more options, if they're looking at an area.

- Yeah, transportation is key, and location, location, location, right?

And we have US 30 as well.

- [Steve] Ah, that's right.

- So that's why we're at the crossroads of America in Lima-Allen County.

- [Steve] There you go.

- But the transportation, yeah, is just superb.

I mean, we've got the highway, we've got rail, and, you know, we have big utilities there with electric, and we've got a water treatment plant in the city of Lima that's designed to treat 30 million gallons of water per day, and we're only treating about half of that right now.

So we have capacity available.

- [Steve] Yeah, it's good that you mentioned the energy part of it too, because, especially when situations like data centers, those use serious amounts of electricity, and, in some cases, water.

But you've got that in place, so you're prepared.

Because we always talk about site-ready locations where you can say, "Look, we've got everything in place.

How soon can you start?"

kind of thing.

And that's what companies wanna know is, "How soon can we get on the ground doing what we're doing?"

We've talked a lot about all the resources available, all the tools you have.

Talk about some of the successes, there's a long, long list of them, so talk about some of the things that have been accomplished, and then we can talk about where we're headed in the future down there as well.

- Yeah, so if you come to Lima today, it looks a lot different than it did five years ago.

Downtown Lima, great investment, $60 million of investment, if not more, in just Downtown Lima.

So people need to check out Downtown Lima again.

But if you go outside and you start looking at some of the industrial development we've had, I mean, just in the past year, we had involvement of about a billion dollars of investment with some of our companies that are already in Lima-Allen County.

And a good example of that is Procter & Gamble.

I mean, Procter & Gamble, they have over 500 acres.

- [Steve] Wow.

- Just a couple of years ago, announced a $500 million expansion.

And so with that, I mean, that's key to Lima-Allen County is a company like Procter & Gamble.

- Yeah, well, and you mentioned too, that's retaining companies that are here, which is sometimes an overlooked part of what you do, because keeping a company here is just as important or more important than sometimes attracting someone new to the area, because it's a lot easier to retain or it's better to retain people than have to go through a whole new process to bring someone new in.

- [Cynthia] Right.

- [Steve] You wanna keep your friends close.

[Cynthia] Right, right, because bringing in attraction projects, it can get complicated, it really can with extending water/sewer, or your utilities, building a new road, getting power lines and substations.

So, but, yes, we work very closely with our existing businesses.

And we have some key companies in Lima-Allen County, and we're very diversified when it comes to our industry base.

- [Steve] Yeah, 'cause I noticed when you look on your sites, you can see things about, you know, biohealth, plastics manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, automotive, food processing.

So it's, yeah, very diverse.

Which, of course, too, is you don't wanna be locked to one specific area, because then you rise and fall as that industry rises and falls depending on what's going on with it.

What are some of the things as you look down the road, I mean, obviously the hot thing that people talk about now is data centers, but there's more than that out there obviously, too.

So let's talk about maybe what's downstream that you're maybe working on to the degree that you can talk about it.

- [Cynthia] You know, I mean, we get a lot of attraction projects that are in the food industry.

But I tell you, here recently in the last couple years, we have data centers looking at Lima-Allen County.

- [Steve] Sure, yeah.

- [Cynthia] Because we have good utilities, as I mentioned before, and we have available land, so we've been trying to put together 300, 500 acre sites.

And so we are working with a data center right now, I'm allowed to announce it, because they've announced it themselves that they're looking at about 400 acres in Allen County.

- [Steve] Yeah, wow, wow.

- [Cynthia] Yeah.

- [Steve] And now are there other things, because obviously this isn't a static industry, what are the kind of things you look at to say, "Okay, here are the tools we have right now, What will we need in the future?

What will companies start to look for downstream?"

What are some of the things you're saying, "Here's where we need to be thinking about what we should have available five years from now, not five months from now"?

- [Cynthia] It would be availability of land.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- [Cynthia] I mean, you know, first of all, you look around and you see a lot of farmland.

And we love our farmland, but there are some of those landowners that are willing to participate in a land option.

And, first of all, we always look at those properties that are near utilities or near an interstate.

- [Steve] Right.

- So that's important.

So I would say availability of land for future development.

- [David] Can I run with that just a little bit too?

- [Steve] Sure.

- [David] What we hear from our businesses is the importance, when we go to, we do BRNEs, meetings with companies, they're saying there's several things that we need to address.

One is the land and the site preparedness, but also the housing piece is huge, and so we have issues with that.

We're also looking at how can we market the area.

Okay, it's very important.

What about workforce?

A lot of those things are not just Allen County centric, right?

It's like throughout the whole area.

- [Steve] Right.

- So we're trying to look at how can we focus on the Greater Lima region to make it an attractive place for investment.

Cindy mentioned $60 million in Downtown Lima, that's the start of it, because there's another $60 million that people are talking about investing in Downtown Lima.

We would encourage people to come and see what's going on in Lima, Ohio.

It looks a lot different.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And so we're excited to bring all those pieces together to be an attractive place for people, to live, and work, and play, and eat, and enjoy life.

- [Steve] Yeah, well, and it's interesting, because I was thinking as you're saying that, we had not talked about quality of life.

And, again, as you look at online, at the things you list, it demonstrates all the things that are available.

So if you're just thinking about moving here, maybe you're not coming because a company is coming here, but that's attractive.

Because when companies come, they wanna know, "Okay, we want our employees to have a good quality of life.

We want them to be happy here.

So what's available beyond the logistics of moving our business, what's it gonna be like when our employees get here and people we wanna attract as new employees?"

So that's an important part too.

- [Cynthia] It is, and our businesses are trying to attract employees to come and take jobs, live here, work here, so it's the amenities.

Dave didn't mention, I mean, we did talk about downtown, but when you think about the amenities of the mall that we have, how are we redeveloping the mall, getting new anchor tenants?

How are we attracting restaurants?

And so there's a lot of amenities that go along with attracting people to our area.

- [Steve] Yeah, parks and recreation.

- [David] For sure.

- [Steve] I mean, parks are big.

- [Cynthia] Yes.

- [Steve] And because people wanna do more things outside.

We got just a moment here, is there one thing, if somebody says, "Hey, I wanna talk to you about coming to Lima," what would be the simplest way for them to do it?

Just pick up the phone and give you a call?

- [Cynthia] Yep, give me a call, visit us on our website, email me.

We get a lot of calls and a lot of interest, and we'll help any size of company that's interested in looking at Lima-Allen County.

- [David] We would invite them to be a GLR member.

- [Steve] Okay, there you go, exactly.

- [Cynthia] There you go.

- [David] So they can be a part of the partnership to see what's going on in Lima-Allen County.

We're proud of what's going on.

We're excited about the future.

We believe in what's taking place.

And Cindy's doing outstanding with Allen Economic Development Group.

Outstanding, can't say enough about the work she's doing with her team.

And then, and I would say this, Steve, we're gonna invite you to come to Lima, Ohio.

- [Steve] Okay, yeah.

I almost made it down to Lima a few weeks ago, and then something came up, so we couldn't get down there.

But we've talked about doing that.

We used to go downtown, because we, of course, have people who are supporters of the station in Lima, and we would meet with them periodically in the downtown, and you could see the change taking place over the past number of years.

So, yeah, but it's one of those things, yeah, you just have to think about it and do it.

So, yeah.

- [Cynthia] Right.

And, you know, people, I think, are feeling safe.

We've got a lot of streetscaping.

The city's doing a wonderful job with lighting projects, sidewalk projects, and we want people to come and be safe there, and they absolutely can be.

- [Steve] Okay, well great.

Well, thank you both so much for being here.

- [David] Thanks, Steve.

- [Steve] And anytime that you wanna come on and talk about what's going on down there, something, you know, a big development, like you've talked about, that sort of thing, you're more than welcome, because, obviously, the more that you're successful, the more the region is, and the more that Ohio is, and then the country as well.

So we appreciate the efforts you guys put forth to make all of this happen.

- [Cynthia] Yeah, thank you.

[David] Thanks so much, Steve.

- Yep, thank you.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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