Cohen’s retail recycling locations already collect waste computers, cell phones, appliances and electronics and send them to a processing center on South Verity Parkway for dismantling. But the operation is running out of space. The family-owned company has purchased new automated equipment for sorting and reclaiming materials used to make electronics and is building a 50,000-square-foot addition to house the machinery, according to Adam Dumes, vice president of Cohen Electronics.
“About five or six years ago we saw there was an opportunity to expand into different product lines,” Dumes said Wednesday at a groundbreaking ceremony.
“This is a different product line than scrap metal per se because everybody has it. I bet everybody in this crowd has an old TV, an old VCR, an old computer, an old phone, or a cord somewhere and you may ask yourself at some point what should I do with this?” Dumes said.
It’s important to raise awareness about properly recycling electronic waste because there are toxic elements that could have a negative impact on the environment and human health if the products are dumped, he said.
Currently, workers break down electronic products for recycling mostly by hand, and the new equipment will allow Cohen to process higher volumes of the material containing various precious metals.
“This is going to be a one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art facility,” he said.
Founded in 1924, Cohen Recycling is one the largest privately-owned scrap metal, electronics and automobile processing companies in the region. Cohen operates 18 facilities across three states and employees over 500 people, according to the Middletown-based business.
Meanwhile, dirt is flying at the construction site for AK Steel's new $36 million Research and Innovation Center off Union Road in Middletown, said company spokesman Barry Racey.
AK Steel, the city’s largest employer, will build the new 135,000-square-foot-facility on a 16-acre site in the city’s Renaissance District, near the intersection of Ohio 122 and Interstate 75. It is the first tenant in developer Schueler Group’s newest business park, named North Pointe Commerce Park.
Currently, about 76 researchers, scientists and engineers work at AK Steel’s existing research center on Curtis Street in Middletown and help develop new advanced, high-strength metals, according to the company. Those workers will transfer to the new site when it opens, and about 15 new full-time jobs will be added.
Middletown City Council approved in May an incentives package for the research center project that includes borrowing $2.1 million to buy the land for the steelmaker, which also operates a local manufacturing plant.
Nearby on the Atrium Medical Center Campus, Cincinnati Eye Institute is scheduled to begin construction in October on a $4.5 million, 17,000-square-foot building for doctor offices, eye care and surgery services.
Construction has yet to start on the more than $500 million natural-gas fired power plant near the intersection of Oxford State and Cincinnati-Dayton roads within Middletown city limits. Officials with NTE Energy, the Florida-based developer behind the project, have said to expect to see work starting to build an access road to the property. Once Middletown Energy Center opens in 2018, it could produce more than 500 megawatts of electric power year-round and provide a cleaner source of energy to the region's electricity supplies.
However, NTE is waiting on financing of the project to close before commencing construction on the power facility, according to the most recent update from NTE.
These projects are “advanced, high-tech and ‘green,’ but it’s building on our skill set,” Hamet, the city’s development director, said.
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