He declined to release what the final purchase price was for both facilities, but Middletown officials are encouraged the unsightly property will be cleaned up.
He said 99 percent of the equipment was removed at the Middletown site when it closed in 2004.
Franklin Boxboard ended production of recycled paperboard last August where 81 people lost their hourly or salaried jobs. The plant had been in operation for 100 years.
“The Middletown and Franklin buildings are in good shape and we’re working with both cities to work with expanding companies,” Logan said.
He said they’d be looking at manufacturing companies that are in the service side of the paper, auto or steel industries.
“There may be a market to do processing in the future,” he said.
The Middletown site is between 400,000 and 600,000 square feet and the Franklin site is between 170,000 and 200,000 square feet.
Denise Hamet, Middletown’s economic development director, said the city’s interest is to clean up the site and said the city may be able to assist Logan with a Clean Ohio grant.
In addition, Hamet said there may be a company which might be interested in working with Logan, “but it may take a while to flesh that out.”
Franklin City Manager Sonny Lewis said he has recently met with Logan who told him that he had not decided what he plans to do with the Franklin Boxboard site.
“He said he’d let us know what his business plan will be in the next six to seven weeks after he completed purchases of buildings in Indiana,” Lewis said.
Logan’s company owns properties in Ohio, Indiana and in New Jersey. He is currently purchasing buildings in Anderson and in LaPorte, Ind.
“The opportunity to do business is why I came to Ohio,” Logan said. “The workforce is abundant and people here are eager and willing to put their skills to work.”
Logan said he recently put in a blind advertisement on the Craigslist website for general laborers. He said he received 100 responses in two days.
“It was overwhelming,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4504 or Ed.Richter@coxinc.com.
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