New agency’s ‘humongous job’ is to help bold projects reshape Butler County

The BCFA is both a port authority and a development finance agency. A port authority can perform activities that, among other things, enhance and aid transportation projects, economic development and housing. The finance agency side of the operation is where it can issue tax-exempt and taxable bonds, provide credit enhancement programs, and offer direct lending, equity investments, and other finance products.

The newly formed Butler County Finance Authority will be more proactive than what it had been as the port authority, which smith said was “more transactional,” with things like a sales tax exemption or capital lease project, and proceeds would go into an investment account and just sit there.

“The real value in my opinion is not to sit on the funds, but to reinvest the funds throughout Butler County and stimulate new development, redevelopment, improve non-productive real estate, assist in the place making efforts of the county, and the one word I come back to is ‘resilience,’” he said.

While there will always be bad economic times, the question Smith said the BCFA will need to ask is “How do we help the county to become more resilient to weather those bad economic times? Hamilton and Middletown are two case studies of not being prepared for a post-industrial economy and decades later are still paying the price.”

But both communities are seeing economic development success, though Hamilton may be ahead of Middletown in that department. Smith was Hamilton city manager from September 2010 to this past April, and his forte was economic development work. Under his leadership, Hamilton brought in several big projects, including the transformational Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill complex and Columbus developer Crawford Hoying to convert the 18-acre former Cohen Recycling plant into a multimillion dollar mixed-use development.

While he plans to work with Crawford Hoying as they build that development, as well as the 20 High St. project, he’s beginning work on a Whole Foods Market development project, in which the grocer will anchor a 40,000-square-foot mixed-use development on the borders of West Chester and Liberty townships. There are a host of other projects in other parts of the county, which are at this point confidential.

Whiteboard of projects

The BCFA is led by a seven-member board of directors. Board President Brad Evans said this relaunch of the agency has been a lot of work as the board and Smith figure out how they can best serve Butler County employers as well as attracting companies looking to relocate to the county.

One of the keys to success, Evans said, is “to move at the speed of business, and the Finance Authority and the board members are certainly committed to that, moving at a pace to be responsive to employers needs.”

In the few months leading the BCFA, Smith has a laundry list of projects outlined on a whiteboard in his offices, the sixth floor of the First Financial Building in downtown Hamilton. He’s already worked with the Great Miami Valley YMCA on a bond deal to refinance $10.8 million in debt, which saves the agency money to be reinvested back into the nonprofit’s operation.

He’s also working to create a couple of working groups, one of which would analyze the Middletown, Hamilton and Oxford airports “that are very unique assets.” This group would work to understand the assets for all three and how to see where they’re complementary and what each does best.

“There are things like advance air mobility that Oxford is probably suited for as is the Middletown airport,” Smith said, saying smaller airports in Iowa have commercial jets fly out of small towns to places like O’Hare International Airport. “That would be an asset to not only businesses, but residents, in Butler County.”

Another working group is for innovation.

“I feel like if there was more focus on this 30, 40 years ago, it’s possible that Hamilton and Middletown would not have seen the tough economic decades they saw after a lot of the large industries closed down,” he said.

A project Smith is familiar with during his time at Hamilton is the Mueller Hotel development of the former city building. He’s working with the developer of the 20 High St. project on their capital stack, looking to use the BCFA bond fund to issue millions in TIF bonds and help Mueller Hotel LLC “go from predevelopment to development.”

Smith sees himself and the BCFA as a support team for communities, adding value to any project that needs assistance. It could be providing additional bandwidth concerning economic development, or just a retention visit or a brainstorming conversation.

“We certainly want to be involved with that,” he said.

‘Humongous job’

There are a lot of expectations of Smith and the Butler County Finance Authority. Butler County Commissioner Don Dixon, who pushed for Smith to take on this role, said while it’s a “humongous job,” Smith has the institutional knowledge and connections to get it done.

“The guy is like a dog with a bone. He won’t give up,” Dixon said, adding he’s hopeful for a prosperous Butler County in the future. In the next few years, many projects that are ideas or in the infancy of development should be well on their way to fruition.

“But there’s not going to be any giveaways,” Dixon said, adding these projects will be using the BCFA for any number of financial products, like a revolving loan or revolving equity, where fees will help fund the agency.

“With all of us in the county working together, we can do multiple projects at one time,” he said, “where every community can get the kind of development they want in their own backyard.”

Smith will have a retreat with his board later this month and will provide a presentation with the Butler County Commission on Aug. 29. Smith continues his tour around the county, meeting with local government and elected leaders, economic development professionals, and has met or will meet with executives with some of the county’s larger businesses, such as Cleveland Cliffs, GE Aerospace, Cincinnati Financial, Koch Foods, the hospitals and VinylMax.

His message to all of them is he’s here to help.

“I would love to be involved,” Smith said of community projects. “Just plug me in and I can bring whatever financial tools to help a project.”

He’s emphasizing that he’s not in competition with anyone, whether it’s the county’s financial institutions or economic development staffs.

“We just want to add value,” Smith said. “We understand that every community has their own economic development staff, and their own plans. We just want to support every community in what they want to accomplish.”