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Springfield's Partnership Industrial Center celebrated its full development today (Thursday) by presenting a check to the City of Springfield and a check to City Utilities of Springfield. KSMU's Missy Shelton reports.
Springfield's Partnership Industrial Center celebrated its full development today (Thursday) by presenting a check to the City of Springfield and a check to City Utilities of Springfield.
The city and C-U invested in the Partnership Industrial Center or P-I-C with the expectation that they would be reimbursed after the P-I-C was fully developed.
When officials broke ground on the site in Northeast Springfield in 1993, they projected it would take at least 15 years to fully reimburse the city and C-U.
Members of the P-I-C's administrative council presented the checks at a press conference at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber, the Springfield Business and Development Corporation, the city of Springfield, C-U and Greene County are all a part of the partnership which came together in 1993 to create large industrial parks that would re-energize the area's manufacturing sector.
Jim Anderson is President of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.
Twenty one companies are located in the Partnership Industrial Center.
City leaders credit the center with creating or helping to retain twenty-four hundred (2400) jobs.
Robert Roundtree was General Manager of City Utilities when the partnership was formed.
One of the precipitating events that led to the creation of the P-I-C was the closing of the Zenith television plant in Springfield in the early 90's.
Roundtree says the partnership came from the ability of community leaders to respond to the changes brought on by the plant's closing.
There is a second Partnership Industrial Center, located in the northwest part of Springfield.
It is more than half-way full.