Brimfield Township to further develop, expand Maplecrest Industrial Park

The trustees of Brimfield Township believe the Maplecrest Industrial Park has great potential for manufacturing businesses like Kenda Tire to balance the retail locations already in place.

“It was a long-vision plan. We had to get the retail in to be able to get the population density to be able to attract Kenda,” said Nic Coia, chairman and liaison to police, zoning and administration departments.

The tax incament funding, or TIF, will allow the large area of unoccupied land behind Meijer and Menard’s on Kent Road to be available for businesses to occupy. This would also establish a service payment system in lieu of taxes for those businesses. This would create a Maplecrest public improvement tax increment equivalent fund.

“Just to summarize, the TIF is putting in a lot of new public infrastructure and landing businesses…  [It’s] creating exactly what you would want it to,” said Dan Dehoff, CEO of Dehoff Development Company, the company heading the project. 

The township has reached its commercial businesses limit at 5% and is putting more focus on integrating businesses outside of retail. This shift will not only balance the types of businesses in the community but will also cut back on 911 calls for theft, making it easier on the fire and police departments, which Fire Chief Craig Mullaly said are already are short-staffed.

Behind the Meijer and Menard’s on Tallmadge Road is 63 acres of land available for businesses, 35 of which are to be occupied by Kenda Tire, a tire manufacturer from Tallmadge that will be expanding space nearly twice the size of their current building. The company has a $5.6 million payroll and Coia believes Kenda could be the biggest employer in Brimfield.

This leaves 28 acres of land left for further expansion. Dehoff said he hopes for more manufacturing businesses fill in the current industrial park. He believes this is a quieter part of the township that will still bring in consistent revenue and jobs. The road running behind the Meijer and Menard’s will turn into a cul-de-sac and that road will connect to the current Maplecrest.

“The northeast side will be available property with public improvements for businesses. This will be shovel-ready land that has a public road running in front of it,” he said.

The industrial park is one of many projects Dehoff has part in that the trustees believe will get Brimfield excited, like the plans for a new Aldi to be integrated into the Brimfield Crossings.

“I’m pretty excited about the project,” said Dehoff. “Ironically Aldi gets more talk than any other project but the real benefit Brimfield has is the industrial park, which doesn’t get a lot of publicity. I’m surprised it doesn’t get more news; those are big businesses and they’re good companies.”