Is the Colonel Glenn Highway strip old enough to recycle? In one case yes.
The site is the former Krug International operation. Krug was founded in 1959 as a research contractor for Wright-Patterson AFB, and built its offices and research facility out on Colonel Glenn sometime before the 1970s, since it appears on this early 1970s aerial photo.
Krug would have been the first commercial development on Colonel Glenn aside from the country village of New Germany, and in a way mimics the first movers out at I-75 and OH 725, which were corporate HQ/plant complexes.
One should say it's somewhat disingenous to say that Colonel Glenn strip is "too new" to recycle as New Germany has been pretty much been recycled into oblivion, losing any independent identity. The story of the disappearance of New Germany could possibly be a blog post all its own.
One can see how the rearrangement of the roads in this area due to I-675 helped distort the character of the place.
Krug International to University Park
Krug International was sold to out-of-town investors in the mid 1990s, and was moved to Houston around 1997-1998. The vacant buildings were sold to a church in 1998. Sometime in the 2000s the church moved, selling the property to Mills-Morgan, a developer active in the WSU/Fairfield Commons area, with some involvement by Oberer, a developer more active south of town.
Mills-Morgan cleared the site and redeveloped it as University Park. Three buildings went up, but it looks like there's room for at least three more.
At first glance this looks like yet another spec office development on Colonel Glenn using the proximity to Wright State as naming opportunity ("University Park"). Instead, there really is a connection with WSU, as all the buildings are signed with WSU activities (except one, which just says "Wright State University".
So one has to wonder what's up. Was this some sort of deal between the developer and the university, where the university gets new space, but not via the state capital budget? Presumably there is an annual lease cost involved, so it must pencil-out for the uni to lease the space rather than build new.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Recycling Colonel Glenn: WSU moves Across The Street
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4 comments:
Hmm Anytime Mills Morgan is involved I get suspicious of a payout. Earmark?
when you say signed with WSU activities, what does that mean exactly? I know the Brehm Lab and Boonshoft school of medicine are buildings on campus, so does that mean they are related directly to those areas of study? I am pretty curious about this.
For Brian: It means there are signs over the doors that say "Brehm Environmental Laboratory Wright State University" and "Boonshoft School of Medicine". I guess these are off-campus units of these WSU branches, or why else name the buildings that way?
For Greg: The payout is that Mills-Morgan gets some rental income from the public sector on what I thought was spec office buildings.
Hi ggreat reading your blog
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