Realtors, clients find Partnership Industrial centers to their liking

Real estate professionals are finding the amenities at the Partnership Industrial Center and Partnership Industrial Center West to their clients' liking.

Tom Rankin, broker with Rankin Company, represented Stamina Products in acquiring a site in PIC West. Stamina Products, which opened in August, was the first tenant in the development.

"We analyzed several properties in Springfield and the surrounding community. Stamina's needs were best met and the best price at PIC West," Rankin said. "For manufacturers, if they need a new location and qualify, it's a deal too good to pass up. It's a great development, nicely laid out and with architectural controls in place to ensure quality buildings and appreciating property values."

Barbara A. Beyer, CCIM, with Beyer Commercial Realtors, helped complete a $525,000, 15-acre deal in January, bringing second tenant Executive Coach Builders to PIC West.

"It's a good value for their dollars," Beyer said. "The people I've worked with who have purchased in either park might have been able to buy land outside the park at a lower rate per acre, but when you factor in utilities actually being brought to the site, the building of roads, plus the protection of restrictive covenants, it's really hard to beat the industrial parks. You get the most for your money."

PIC and PIC West are owned by the Partnership Industrial Center Administrative Council and PIC West Administrative Council. The city of Springfield, City Utilities, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, Springfield Business and Development Corporation, Greene County and the Springfield-Branson Regional Airport have interests in the ownership councils.

The asking price is $35,000 to $40,000 per acre, depending on rail service, said Karl Plumpe, associate general manager for economic development with City Utilities.

Beyer said the parks' management group helps make the sale easier.

"It's been a great experience from a broker's standpoint," Beyer said. "The seller understands business and what motivates a company to go to the trouble of acquiring land and building on it, so they make it easy. Because of their wide range of experience and expertise they often anticipate needs that a company didn't understand might exist, and offer solutions."

The original Partnership Industrial Center, which opened with its first tenant in 1994, is nearly full. About 10 percent of the original 364 acres remains available in PIC, Plumpe said.

Twenty three acres have been sold of the total 379 developable acres in PIC West, According to williams, vice presodent of economic development at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

Know your neighbors

Williams, said that businesses like being in a controlled environment.

"Primarily manufacturers have been very interested in being located in a planned industrial park environment where they will know who their neighbors are going to be," Williams said. "They don't want to be interconnected with residential or noncomplimentary types of neighbors.

"The ability not to be landlocked and to grow their facility is another key reason. We also have very protective covenants related to design standards. We have access to rail service. We consider it to be world-class industrial park property."

Williams estimates that 50 percent to 60 percent of the deals have been Realtor led; a 6 percent commission is paid to Realtors who register the project with the Partnership Industrial Center Council.

Special businesses sought

Not every manufacturing business is sought when the Partnership Industrial Center Council pursues possible tenants.

"We only pursue expanding companies, not relocations, because they have to be a growing company," Plumpe said. "We want them to grow in Springfield. If they only relocate here, what's to say they won't relocate out of here?"

The council doesn't aggressively pursue companies like large automobile plants that would "disproportionately sway the economy," making the local economy too dependent on them, Plumpe said.

"There is a trickle down effect; if we were to lose such a large manufacturer we don't just lose those jobs, we lose others that are indirectly linked to the company and the employees of the company," Plumpe said.

The community also benefits from increased tax dollars.

The property taxes on the land that became the PIC were $1,500 when the land was purchased in 1993. This year, he said, those property taxes exceed $1.5 million.

Plumpe said that of the 20,000 manufacturing jobs in the area, nearly 10 percent are located in the industrial centers.

Outlook

Dave Murray, SIOR, CCIM, a real estate broker with R.B. Murray Co., has mainly represented projects in PIC, such as American Linen Co.

Murray said the West park may take longer to fill because the general overall manufacturing economy has slowed down. Hawker Power Systems Inc. left the PIC in 2002.

He said there are a number of manufacturing plants for sale (Fasco in Ozark, Rubbermaid in Aurora, Hawker in Springfield).

"Because of the general downturn, there is less demand than in the past," Murray said. "I don't think the reduced demand will be a long-term problem. Companies who need special-use buildings will relocate in these parks because their requirements are specialized and they can't use buildings that don't fit their requirements."

In addition to the actual industrial parks and their amenities, community support of Ozarks Technical Community College is critical, Murray said. To have a workforce of educated people capable of operating complex equipment is a draw for companies, Murray said.

"We have land and the employees available. Even more important, while other communities are offering similar industrial parks, we've got other things to offer quality of life issues, the education of our people these are all critical to the success of the parks. The whole community will do better, the better educated the work force," Murray said.