The Knox County Land Bank has landed its first tenant for the former Siemens factory, a complex that encompasses 670,000 square feet of space in 25 buildings on 47 acres.
A company called The Ohio Mint has agreed to lease one building that is about 17,000 square feet in size, Jeff Gottke, president of the Land Bank, told the Mount Vernon News.
“They’re going to start with about 10 employees and grow to about 30,” he said.
The company is a startup that mints silver and gold coins and bars that are sold to investors, Gottke said.
The company has already started moving in and setting up operations and could be operational this month Gottke said.
The company was scouting the area for sites and saw the sign for the Siemens property, he said.
“The operations manager is originally from Mansfield, and they had identified a building in Mansfield, but that deal fell through,” said Gottke. “On his way to the airport to [head] back out west to Utah, he went through Mount Vernon and saw the sign and just walked in our office one day and told us what he was looking for.”
The company was attracted by several aspects of the building, including the thickness of the floors, electrical capacity and overhead cranes to lift heavy machinery, said Gottke.
“The building was constructed to test jet engines,” he said. “It’s a really specialized building. They are taking over a very specialized space and coming up with a new use for it.”
The company has signed a lease-purchase contract.
Siemens closed the plant in 2018 as part of a global cost-cutting move. The property has since been rebranded Cooper Progress Park.
Cooper, now called Cameron International, originally owned the complex, which dates back to 1833.
“In 1997, Cooper sold the business and leased the property to Rolls Royce for 99 years,” said Gottke.
Rolls Royce later sold the lease and the business to Siemens, which sold the lease to the Knox County Land Bank in 2020.
“The Land Bank currently has the lease but not the deed to the property,” he said.
The Land Bank has been negotiating with Cameron’s parent company, Schlumberger, to purchase the property outright. The Land Bank will then be able to sell part of the property to the Ohio Mint.
Meanwhile, landing one tenant should help attract others.
“Other tenants want to see that the property is productive and viable and that they will have neighbors,” Gottke said. “Growth leads to growth.”
