Building going up in Nextedge to bring in more business

Dayton Daily News (Tuesday, July 31, 2007)

by Elaine Morris Roberts
Staff Writer

If you build it, they will come.

The notion made famous in "Field of Dreams" seems to be playing out at Nextedge Applied Research and Technology Park.

Mills-Morgan, Ltd., a Beavercreek-based development firm, has started construction on the first building at the park and Nextedge's business development director Charlie Rinehart has already secured its first tenant.

Qbase, a Beavercreek-based data analysis and management firm with local offices in the Edison Center, 20 S. Limestone St., has committed to lease the entire third floor of the new building, to be completed in early March 2008.

Rinehart said the new building will allay concerns voiced by potential clients. They want to see an actual physical structure and they want to know who else has decided to locate at Nextedge, he said.

"The construction of this building will help facilitate the park's growth. This will help us bring other tenants to town," he said.

Although he did not disclose specifics, Rinehart said he is "actively working with three other groups who could take at least one entire floor of the new building."

Todd Duplain, director of development with Mills-Morgan, said the company's 15-acre site will be home to three buildings with the second to be started by next summer.

Mills-Morgan financed the majority of the $8.1 million, 56,000 square-foot project with bank loans and a direct cash investment from the company, Duplain said.

The project received $3.1 million from a Job Ready Sites grant the city of Springfield received from the Ohio Department of Development.

The grant monies are to be used for direct reimbursement of construction costs, said Tom Franzen, the city's economic development director.

The project, he said, will help the developer achieve its two goals for Springfield: to create an office building that will attract more high-quality research and technology firms and to add to the stable, high paying local technology workforce.

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