Akron City Council agreed Monday to pay $100,000 toward finding ready-to-develop land in Greater Akron as part of an understanding it entered with four area partners and a private donor.
The city’s contribution is part of $1.3 million that will be used to fund the Greater Akron Site Development Fund, which also includes $100,000 from Summit County, $25,000 from the Greater Akron Chamber, $50,000 from the GAR Foundation and $25,000 from the Summit County Land Bank. The largest chunk, $1 million, comes from the private donor, who is requesting anonymity.
The funding will be used to continue to analyze available land in Greater Akron, a process that was started previously, specifically on sites that have commercial or industrial potential. Site analysis will be targeted toward plots of land in the city and the “first ring suburbs” around the city, according to the resolution City Council passed Monday night.
The project’s partners originally collaborated with TeamNEO and the Fund for Our Economic Future, which hired Cleveland real estate brokerage firm Allegro to identify and assess potential sites. With the added funding, the real estate firm will “perform further due diligence” according to the resolution, and the partners may move forward to acquire a site.
At-large Council Member Jeff Fusco, who offered the resolution to City Council, said he often hears that there aren’t “gigantic swaths of land” in Akron available for industrial use. He hopes that this project will lead to more economic opportunities for the city.
“It’s very appropriate, I think, from an economic development piece, that we can partner and go out and actively seek sites,” Fusco said.
Fusco, who was once a real estate appraiser, said that site selection is a nuanced thing but that agencies weigh variables such as acreage and access to water and sewer. And Summit County is lacking in available sites of 25 acres or more that have sufficient utility access, according to an emailed statement from Suzie Graham Moore, the director of economic development for the City of Akron.
She said being able to improve how the city jointly prioritizes and focuses on available sites is a “big deal,” especially when those opportunities provide for urban reinvestment and jobs located close to the workforce to support quality of life for residents.
Finding properties with available resources allows the project to be competitive.
“Now is a good time to focus on reuse of previously developed land as urban redevelopment is a wise direction to pursue for greater future climate resiliency,” Graham Moore also said in the statement.
