In November 2021, auto parts maker Tenneco said it would end operations at the 2555 Woodman plant, which had about 650 workers at the time.
The plant will likely be completely empty by the end of November, said Dean Miller, senior vice president of Solon, Ohio-based Industrial Commercial Properties (ICP), which owns the 1.1-million square-foot plant with Industrial Realty Group (IRG).
Although the ICP-IRG partnership has owned the property since 2012, it has had little to do with it since then, Miller said.
“We’re just now getting it back, and sort of moving on to the next thing, which is leasing/redeveloping the building,” he said in an interview. “Those are very related, those two things, especially in the manufacturing space.”
There is interest in the site, Miller said.
ICP has a presence all over Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states. “We’re marketing it to a large national brokerage network, as part of a focus on manufacturing,” he said. “We’ve had a number of good inquiries and some fairly serious showings.”
ICP has been marketing the building since late summer, he said.
The work takes time. The building will have to be engineered for use by a new tenant, and state and local economic development teams may be involved, as well, Miller said.
Big changes will likely wait until a new user is identified. ICP and IRG will “keep their powder dry until they have a user in place,” Miller said.
Still, removing equipment and cleaning will be among the next steps. Some painting and other steps may happen soon.
“We always try to focus towards what the building is best suited for, but that doesn’t mean saying ‘no’ to anybody (a prospective tenant),” Miller said. “If somebody is interested in using the building either as a complete warehouse or logistics operation or partially for that ... we’re certainly open to that.”
But he added: “We just think the best use for the building is manufacturing.”
The plant complex has some real advantages, in ICP’s view. It has the utilities, electric power, water, sewer and gas service most manufacturers need. A new user likely won’t have to wait for a new electric substation, for example.
ICP has been busy in the Dayton area for years, positioning the former GM assembly plant in Moraine for Fuyao Glass America, developing the former Synchrony Financial building in the Kettering Business Park for Solvita, working with IRG to acquire most of the LexisNexis office campus in Miami Township, to name just a few projects.
A quick history lesson about the former Tenneco plant: Auto parts producer Delphi, after it was spun off from General Motors to an uncertain independence, once had a lot of local workers. In the late 1990s, Delphi had about 15,000 Dayton-area employees. After Delphi’s bankruptcy process and the Great Recession, that number today is zero.
The plant at 2555 Woodman once was a Delphi plant. The future looked uncertain at best for the facility after Delphi’s bankruptcy. But there were signs of life.
In June 2008, Lake Forest, Ill.-based Tenneco leased about 40% of the plant from Delphi.
Then in the summer of 2012, Southern Calif.-based IRG bought the plant.
By August 2012, IRG Principal Stu Lichter said that IRG was negotiating with Tenneco on a long-term lease commitment for the Woodman-Forrer Boulevard plant.
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