The Pitt Ohio site spans just over 28 acres off Chevrolet Boulevard, south of Brookpark Road and GM's Parma stamping plant.
PARMA, Ohio -- A Pennsylvania trucking company plans to consolidate its Northeast Ohio facilities and 140 jobs into a new building in Parma, on a portion of a former General Motors property that the automaker shed in the wake of its 2009 bankruptcy.
Parma's Planning Commission approved legislation Wednesday to enable a lot split for Pitt Ohio, a Pittsburgh-based trucking business that wants to build a new facility. That legislation could head to a City Council vote Monday, in the first set of public approvals for a project likely to involve city and state incentives.
The Pitt Ohio site spans just over 28 acres off Chevrolet Boulevard, south of Brookpark Road and GM's Parma stamping plant. That slice of the West Side suburb is becoming something of a trucking hub, with Pitt setting down near a longtime ABF Freight facility and a Con-way Freight operation. Rush Truck Centers, which sells trucks, is planning a new dealership on Snow Road, just a short hop from Pitt's intended home.
"It's just kind of funny, we're the new trucking mecca, somehow," said Shelley Cullins, Parma's economic development officer. "This will be our third over-the-road trucking company that's located within a quarter mile of each other."
A Pitt Ohio spokeswoman didn't provide answers to follow-up questions about the project on Friday. In a city news release, a company executive said the location, infrastructure and access to trained workers made Parma the right choice.
"Pitt Ohio has operated in northeastern Ohio for more than 25 years," Geoffrey Muessig, Pitt's executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said in the news release. "We are pleased to relocate our expanding northeast Ohio terminal to Parma."
Cullins said the company is consolidating jobs from scattered Cuyahoga County locations. Pitt hired a site selector and scoured the market before settling on the Chevrolet Boulevard site. Cleveland, where the company has a terminal on Industrial Parkway, was the runner-up, Cullins added. Cleveland's economic development director wasn't available to comment Friday.
"They were looking for 30 acres," Cullins said of Pitt, "and proximity to freeways. Obviously any trucking company wants that. They wanted a greenfield, which this is. That's kind of hard to find. ... That corner of Parma is pretty compelling.
The Chevrolet Boulevard property is a short drive from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and sits near Interstates 71 and 480.
Pitt expects to build a terminal with 50 bays - space for 100 trucks - and 8,000 square feet of offices, according to the city. On top of moving 140 existing jobs, the company would add 60 employees within three years. Cullins would not divulge Pitt's local payroll, saying only that it will be "significant for Parma."
City officials are negotiating a development agreement with the company, which is likely to receive a payroll-tax rebate of some sort. Cullins said the company also is seeking job-creation tax incentives from the state. And the city expects to use a grant from JobsOhio, the state's semi-private economic-development organization, to cover the cost of putting a new traffic signal on Chevrolet Boulevard.
It appears that Pitt also would get a property-tax break on the Parma project, as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clean-up program applied to the former GM facility. Essentially, Cullins said, any improvements to the land - such as a new building - could be tax-exempt for as much as a decade. The specific details of that tax-reduction deal aren't clear.
Joseph Greenberg of Greenberg Real Estate Advisors, which has been marketing the property, didn't respond to a request for comment. 54 Chevy LLC, an investor group associated with Greenberg, acquired the land in 2011. That company owns a former GM building to the west and more land behind the building.
Parma officials said the new truck terminal could open in 2015. Pitt plans to seek green-building certification for the project, through the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.