As published in the December 1, 2006 Toledo Business Journal
Tom Blaha
Wood County Economic Development Commission,
executive director
Bass Pro may spur tourist destination industry
Toledo Business Journal recently interviewed Tom Blaha, executive director of the Wood County Economic Development Commission. He shared the following thoughts.
Toledo Business Journal: Bass Pro recently completed an estimated $50 million deal for a site in Wood County. Can you explain what this investment includes?
Tom Blaha: It includes 225± acres of land, which is already appropriately zoned by the City of Rossford and served with appropriate utilities. It is also part of a joint economic development zone with the City of Toledo as a result of an agreement signed in about 1989. In the agreement, the City of Rossford promised to share a set percentage of the payroll tax it collects there with the City of Toledo ad infinitum in return for the right to serve it with Toledo water at 150% markup. This is turning out to be a good deal for everybody. It is proof that some projects can be win-win, and if handled professionally and regionally, there are no losers.
Back to your original question, the investment by Bass Pro also includes construction of a 150,000 to 180,000 square foot Outdoor World facility. This would, of course, require and include appropriate parking, lighting, and internal circulation. Being the public / private partnership that we are, the Wood County Economic Development Commission (WCEDC) hopes that many of our members will be chosen on their merits to provide their services to Bass Pro as it constructs its complex. Internally, it will also include significant taxidermy and aquarium exhibits and an outdoor themed restaurant.
TBJ: Did Bass Pro consider other sites for this investment, and can you share the background of this large deal?
TB: The foresight, perseverance, and patience that went into this project are easily overlooked in the euphoria over an announcement. This project was initiated in 1995 by representatives of the landowners who had the vision to see the significance of the location and convinced the landowners to stick together and market the large assemblage for a use that would befit its regional significance. The then-young WCEDC office, as now, a public-private partnership, was approached by the private sector realtor [Brian McMahon] who had already been excoriated in the press for suggesting that the strategic location of this site warranted a destination facility, “the magnitude of a Disney.”
He approached us to assist his private sector real estate motives by packaging the locational attributes of the site and blending them with the public benefit (employment and attraction of outside tourism dollars) that would be realized by landing such a destination facility. He had already done his homework and told me the company he was targeting was Bass Pro. Being an outdoor sportsman myself, I had heard of the brand, but hadn’t really thought of it as an economic development target.
At that time, its only facility was in Springfield, Missouri. Together we called on the mayor and city administrator of the City of Rossford, who were also very visionary in having annexed this huge acreage into their city limits. At that point the Wood County, Ohio Bass Pro Team was born. Knowing that County Commissioner Bob Latta shared my interest in outdoor sports, I apprised him of the initiative and he became a key member of the team, helping us identify various segments of State government (including then Governor Voinovich) who shared our interest and could add their weight behind our sales effort.
This is the stage where vision and foresight transitioned to perseverance. Latta carried his enthusiasm for this project with him to Columbus when he became a state senator shortly after that.
In early 1997, a Wood County / Rossford delegation, which included myself, Commissioner Carter, Mayor Zuchowski, and Vince Langevin, the city administrator, visited Bass Pro’s top corporate executives at its headquarters in Springfield, Missouri.
We learned that there were some stumbling blocks at the state level providing disincentives for Bass Pro to expand further into Ohio. Senator Latta began a long, hard journey towards convincing his fellow legislators as well as the state’s executive branch that such a store really represented economic development.
During those years, Senator Latta became Representative Latta, Rossford got a new Mayor, Bill Verbosky, and a new administrator, Ed Ciecka, and we paid another visit to Springfield to pitch our location, which Brian McMahon had continued to keep intact, successfully urging the landowners not to sell off the prime frontage to truck stops, burger barns, etc. It was 2003 by this time, and Bass Pro was opening up new stores all around the south and Midwest.
In early 2004, we knew things were getting a little more serious, as those of us working directly with the transaction were asked by Bass Pro to sign a confidentiality agreement, which we did. The CEO and COO of Bass Pro accepted our invitation to come to Columbus to meet with the Governor (now Bob Taft) and officials of the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD). There were some false starts there, which I needn’t go into, and the project went into dormancy for over a year.
Representative Latta was relentless however, in his pursuit of championing the cause of smoothing the way for Bass Pro to come to Wood County in a big way. He cultivated the support of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, which had always been in favor of attracting Bass Pro, and got the Ohio Division of Tourism behind it, as well as his colleague Randy Gardner in the Ohio Senate. Together, these two long-time Wood County legislators were able to pass the enabling legislation sought by the outdoor retailer to be able to make happen in Ohio what, by that time, it had already succeeded at in a number of other states including Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
The Bass Pro brain trust came back to Wood County in early 2006 to meet with the Wood County Bass Pro team, which included all of those mentioned above plus the Rossford Port Authority, which had just financed the Owens-Illinois corporate headquarters deal in Perrysburg. On that trip, as a courtesy to the mayor of a nearby community, the Bass Pro executive briefly visited another site. While he determined that the site wouldn’t work, and the community hadn’t done the homework at the state level that we’d done, this courtesy call triggered a massive press response.
This sudden and dramatic press response brought the Bass Pro Deal to the attention of a northwest Ohio public who had been totally oblivious of it during the years the Wood County Team had been professionally honoring our confidentiality agreement with the company. This visibility gap led to (and still fosters) the misconception that the company was “shopping communities,” that our neighbor had fumbled a ball that was theirs all along, and that we vultures recovered it.
TBJ: Is there other available land near the Bass Pro site, and who controls this property?
TB: There are approximately 800 additional acres immediately adjacent to the Bass Pro assemblage, all similarly zoned and serviced. Much of it is still owned by the small handful of original families who have been so patient over the years waiting for something of this magnitude, that they deserve the rewards and profits they are now rightfully harvesting. Other portions of land in this immediate vicinity have attracted the attention of a virtual “who’s who” in the real estate industry. The Millers, of Miller Diversified, have an office business park to the immediate south of the Bass Pro parcel. The irony is that their dad was one of the originators of Arrowhead Park, seen by most folks in the region as the benchmark of office park / retail mix. Hopefully it won’t sound like hyperbole when I say that this area has the potential to equal or surpass that benchmark, in that the aggregate improved acreage here is greater than the acreage in Arrowhead. I could foresee The Parkway serving the same function for this complex that Dussel Drive serves for Arrowhead.
TBJ: What do you see for the future of this part of Wood County that is in proximity to Rossford and Perrysburg?
TB: This part of Wood County is the growth axis of all of northwest Ohio. There are close to 1,000 acres within the city limits of Rossford in this immediate “Crossroads of America” area. We all know about the national importance of I-75, 80, and 90. But let me draw your attention to Ohio Route 795, the east-west axis of this important economic development corridor. Though it’s a state route, it is four-lane, divided, and limited access – built for trucks, built for industry.
Some of the WCEDC’s most significant accomplishments have taken place along this corridor – the Walgreen Distribution Center, the filling of the Cedar Business Center. But there is so much more to come. Spanning eight miles from the cities of Perrysburg and Rossford, through the Townships of Perrysburg and Lake, to the Villages of Walbridge and Millbury, SR 795 has plentiful acres that are zoned industrially by those constituencies.
Furthermore, those constituencies had the foresight to put in place Enterprise Zones to enable incentives to appropriate investment and job creation. There is a federally designated Foreign Trade Zone along this corridor in Lake Township, and it is served by a general aviation airport (Metcalf) as well as two of the premier railway marshalling centers in the Midwest.
We are poised to attract a wide variety of users, ranging from another regionally significant tourist destination to the next industrial “mega-site” to any number of multi-modal transportation hubs. When the new Veterans’ Glass City Skyway is completed, I-280 will be the north-south extension of the “east door” to this corridor.
As Wood County’s economic development director, I feel privileged to have such a “product” to sell. I feel equally privileged to have the enlightened leadership of the previously mentioned constituencies to work with as partners as we strive towards the $3 billion mark in attracted new investment.
TBJ: If Bass Pro spurs a significant inflow of visitors to the area, what other attractions might locate close to this site?
TB: The key word there is “might,” as we currently have no commitments from other users – or they would have announced them. Certainly the connectivity of this location – 18 million people within a 2-hour drive radius and the magnet of a Bass Pro Outdoor World – would be attractive to interactive uses like water parks, entertainment venues, and various spectator sports as well as a full range of hotels, restaurants, and exhibitions / museums.
TBJ: Are there any other issues you would like to discuss?
TB: Let me reiterate that Bass Pro’s attention to this part of the world was initiated by Brian McMahon’s vision in 1995. It was kept alive by Bob Latta’s persistence and Bill Verbosky’s and Ed Ciecka’s patience. It was consummated by Rex Huffman and Mike Scott’s [Rossford Port Authority] creativity, the support of Senator Randy Gardner, Governor Taft, the Perrysburg Township Trustees and their Administrator John Hrosko. And, using a power given to them by Latta and Gardner’s legislation, it was triggered by the courage of our Wood County Commissioners: Jim Carter, Tim Brown, and Alvin Perkins.
TBJ: Please accept our congratulations on recently receiving the Ohio Economic Development Association’s (OEDA) Presidents Award for lifetime achievements.
TB: Thank you. Like any great accomplishment, it is really the work of many people, a team if you will. When I accepted the award, I said I was doing so on behalf of the over 100 public and private entities that make up the WCEDC. We’ve mentioned many of them already in this conversation. So while I was pleased and flattered to receive the award, I recognize that it’s really a testament to the teamwork and cooperation that we cultivate here in Wood County. I guess it just goes to prove the old adage that business goes where it’s wanted and stays where it is well looked after. We work every day at making Wood County the best place in the Midwest to work, play, and raise a family, and I believe it’s paying off.