Northwest Ohio: A Common Agenda

When Gov, Voinovich talks about regional partnerships, he has an excellent example in Northwest Ohio. A 10-county region is marshaling its considerable assets to create an integrated package of outstanding proportions.

Northwest Ohio Regional Economic Development (NORED) covers nearly one million people, with population centered on Toledo. That city led the state in growth of manufacturing employment for 1993 and 1994, a stunning turn-around from the economically depressed days of the Rust Belt era.

The region is rich in transportation resources. Interstates 80/90 and I-75, crossing in the Toledo metro area, provide east-west and north-south access.

Northwest Ohio is one of the nation's top three rail centers. Conrail recently opened a state-of-the-art terminal, the first on the company's system to combine intermodal and automotive handling capabilities. The terminal is expected to enhance Toledo's importance as a transportation center, improve service to the region's automotive facilities and serve as a distribution hub for import vehicle business in the Midwest.

The Port of Toledo, one of the largest on Lake Erie, is also one of the most diversified on the Great Lakes. The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority not only manages the port but also operates Toledo Express Airport.

The port authority's strong recruitment package, plus regional location advantages, clinched Burlington Northern's air cargo hub for Toledo Express Airport. The port authority provided a facility that could be financed off balance sheet, plus soup to nuts prospect services to take much of the risk out of the company's future growth. The air cargo hub is the central point for the company's 488 offices in 112 countries, and its activities make Toledo Express second only to Chicago's O'Hare among Great Lakes air cargo facilities.

Those transportation assets, as well as availability of large sites, quantities of water and competitively priced electricity and natural gas, are what attracted over $1 billion in industrial capital investment to the region in 1995.
	The North Star-BHP minimill in Fulton County is expected to generate substantial spinoff, as other firms zero in on opportunities to serve the mammoth mill.

At the top of the list was the $425 million, 375-job North Star BHP Steel minimill on a greenfield site in Delta in Fulton County. The mill will ship 1.5 million tons of new hot-rolled coil steel annually. Scrap for the minimill comes from industrial processing operations and obsolete scrap generated in the Upper Midwest. The mill is a joint venture of North Star Steel, a unit of Cargill, and BHP Steel, Australia's largest publicly owned company.

Spinoff is already occurring. Shortly after the North Star announcement, Worthington Industries said it would locate a $70 million steel processing plant next door.

What forms the strength of Northwest Ohio is the common economic development agenda. One county helps another. When prospects come calling, everyone pitches in. One aid is the Northwest Ohio Economic Information Center, where smaller communities can tap a database of sites, facilities, labor, taxes and other factors free of charge.

"This gives them a competitive advantage," says Rick Weddle, president of the Regional Growth Partnership.

The regional approach to economic development -- just two years old -- is already bearing fruit. The 10-county region has chalked up over 8,100 jobs and $1.7 billion in investment in the past 24 months.