A bus tour Wednesday hosted by the Community Development Corporation of Butler County gave more than 20 CDC board members, business owners and public officials a first-hand look at sites developed by or under development by the CDC and its partners.

Ken Raybuck, executive director of the CDC, said he hoped showing the group the CDC’s successes and development opportunities not only would give them an appreciation for the organization’s work, but the ability to help market current sites.

“It’s pretty impressive when you see all the things we’ve been involved with through CDC, the jobs created and development,” Raybuck said

Guests on the four-hour tour included Butler County Community College President Nick Neupauer, Butler Tourism and Convention Bureau executive director Jack Cohen and Butler County Commissioner Bill McCarrier, who acted as tour guide while the bus carrying the group was in motion, explaining the histories of the CDC, founded in 1959, and the sites it has developed.

“One of the advantages of having a 31-member board is the networking opportunities,” McCarrier said.

According to McCarrier, the CDC’s first business venture was the East Butler Industrial Park, followed by its development in Jackson Township, currently home to Sysco, then Kreiss Road Business Park, whose main tenants include Pittsburgh Plastics Manufacturing and United Plate Glass.

“That park was filled up in a matter of a few years,” McCarrier said of Kreiss Road.

Victory Road Business Park, the former site of a USX sintering plant, broke ground in 1998 and has grown to include more than a dozen businesses.

Pullman site

About 100 years ago, McCarrier explained, 90 percent of the world’s oil was produced in Butler County.

“The economy here was governed by oil. We had five oil refineries in Butler County,” he said.

The infrastructure from that industry, particularly the railroads, served the county well as its economy shifted toward steel production and, in Butler, steel rail cars at the Pullman Standard plant, which closed in 1982.

The tour’s first stop was at 140 Hollywood Drive, where the CDC is marketing a $2.3 million, 30,000-square foot building containing a pair of 5-ton cranes and ceiling heights soaring to 31 feet.

Pat Tracy, an associate with Colliers International, which markets the CDC’s major properties, said the space is ideal for manufacturing, especially since it has been refurbished with top-of-the-line, energy-efficient insulation, lighting and heating systems.

While Colliers is promoting the property regionally, the firm also markets all of its properties on a national and international level, and “we don’t ignore the investment market, either,” Tracy said.

The property has been listed by Colliers for almost two years and the firm has received about eight serious inquiries, according to Joe Saeler, manager of operations for the CDC. He said a slow economy and the Butler location have been prohibitive factors, so far, in selling the building and its 5-plus acres.

“Right now, the demand is more centered on Cranberry Township,” Saeler said. “But we are extremely optimistic about this building and the land around it.”

That is because the cost of building a similar structure new could include more than $100,000 in permit fees and engineering costs as well as $60,000 in utility hookups before the first brick is even laid, he said. Additionally, shovel-ready land in Cranberry Township is likely to cost more.

The Pullman site was further developed with the addition of a $400,000 sewage pumping station at its south end, nearest the Picklegate Bridge into Lyndora from Route 8. Raybuck said the pumping station was built to handle the needs of any site development as well as the existing structures.

Shearer Road site

The CDC’s building at 295 Delwood Drive in Butler Township has been on the market for more than a year, with an asking price of $1.5 million, down from $1.8 million.

Like the Hollywood Drive property, Colliers has aggressively marketed the property locally and beyond.

“Like we say in this industry, there’s a butt for every seat, and the right person is out there for this building,” said David Thor, the Colliers associate promoting the property.

Saeler said about a dozen people have expressed interest in the 14,700-square-foot building, but either financing was an issue or the space was too big for their needs. Additionally, about eight acres of the 14.8 acre site is ineligible for expansion because it is DEP-protected land.

However, Thor said the building could be used for manufacturing, collegiate training or even converted into an office space, depending on the buyer’s needs, and is made more attractive by its openness, created by a lack of interior support columns.

“We try to keep as open a mind as possible,” he said.

While Butler Economic Development Corp. technically is the owner of the property, the CDC is co-guarantor on its mortgage.

“All of these properties would be great if we didn’t have mortgages,” joked Raybuck.

“But we built spec buildings when the economy was tanked and no one else was doing it, except for some development in Cranberry. That puts us in a good position now to offer them for sale.”

He said the building is targeting owner/users and smaller companies, while the Hollywood Drive site is marketed toward larger manufacturing operations.

Victory Road site

The group’s visit to Victory Road Business Park in Clinton Township included a tour of Cygnus Manufacturing, a precision design, machining and assembly company which opened there in 2002 and employs more than 150 people.

The park’s other major employers include grocer ALDI’s eastern regional distribution center, which uses more than 400,000 square feet of building space, and Brayman Construction, which uses the only remaining structure from the former USX sintering plant.

Before being developed by CDC, the 420-acre lot was strewn with dilapidated buildings and low-grade iron ore, remnants of the 420-acre sintering operation USX abandoned there in 1986.

“It was like a lunar landscape,” McCarrier said.

Buffalo Township

After a lunch provided by CDC member business Garrett’s Place in Buffalo Township, the group visited a potential development site at the corner of Route 28 and Route 356 in the township.

The southern side of the intersection is home to a state park and ride station, but more than 50 acres on the north side of the intersection is available for development.

Raybuck said the area behind the park and ride would provide an ideal hotel location and the acreage across the street, though dominated by hilly terrain, is a prime location for potential developers looking for sites just north of Pittsburgh.

“We would like to be a part of this (development), but we do not have the money to do it ourselves,” he said.