Pickaway County – When you talk around the area about economic development most Mayors, Council people, and Commissioners in Pickaway County quote Pickaway Progress Partnerships Economic Development director Ryan Scribner. I believe this is mostly because of how successfully Scribner has been in bringing development to all parts of Pickaway County.
During the Circleville Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday night Scribner announced that he is moving on from the group.
“My hope is that what is truly a unique and creative and collaborative approach to the public and private partnership to effect meaningful economic development in Pickaway County continues long after I’m gone from this role today,” said Scribner
Scribner during his speech to Council reminisced about his past 12 years with the group and how development today can affect long-term tomorrow.
“I can’t help but reminisce just a little bit. Because some of the things that we were working on 12 years ago, even when I started P3, and in some cases a few years before I started P3 are starting to pay dividends now and have a connection with projects and activities that are happening right now.”
Scriber backtracked to a 3 million dollar JRS grant that helped the redevelopment of the Thompson RCA property.
“It took us six years of effort to get to where we could pull the trigger in partnership with the site owners that own the Thompson RCA property and move forward and for some of maybe some of the less tenured council members you might not understand or know that all those new roads and the intersection, the water, the sewer lines, the lift station and all of that were paid for actually without any participation from the city other than inspecting the work that was all paid for and funded by grant money secured by my ex predecessor of P3 A long time ago.”
Scriber said that P3 laid the foundation for development in that area including the Hampton Inn, Starbucks, City Barbecue, a new strip mall, and in the future a new hotel development, and a new possible project that is codenamed Project Sacramento that has a direct connection as a supplier to Intel, the microchip plant building in New Albany. Scriber and P3 were pivotal in bringing Sofidel into the community and are now a possible expansion on that facility.
Scribner fast-forwarded to the future and talked about local Cargill and a potentially significant new investment that they’re contemplating to their operations in Circleville, which would improve their throughput efficiency traffic flow, the Court Street connector, turn lanes on Lancaster Pike by OCU was funded by ODOT, and a project to fix US-23 and ST-22 that was asked for years ago is starting to pay off with construction today.
Scribner mentioned the OCUBIC by OCU which hosts several new businesses and entrepreneurs was annexed and developed in the City of Circleville, and development of the Everts building on South Court Street that sat with no heat for years empty and now is being renovated by a non-profit run by the Bialy group and offers things for kids to do.
In fact, Scribner and P3 have had effects on a lot of different development in the city including Forjak, GE demolition, and renovation of several brown soil sites.
“By our ticker, in the last 10 years, about two and a half billion dollars of private capital investment in this county, about 18 million square feet of new industrial facilities, and over 5000 new jobs associated with that. We are now a city with a lot of good things happening.”
Scribner said that he didn’t come by the decision to leave lightly.
“As far as me leaving p3, it’s so bittersweet. I had lockjaw all last week from grinding my teeth at night like dreading this, this wasn’t a decision I came by lightly. It’s a timing thing. It’s a situational thing. The good news for me is that me leaving to go do work with a different group. It’s a very similar type of work and I know and I hope that we’ll have opportunities to keep working together in different ways. I’m not leaving Circleville I am not leaving Pickaway County, my family and I will continue to be here and whether it’s professionally or personally, I look forward to supporting this community and again, trying to help make good things happen for the city.
Scribner will leave P3 next month and will start to work with the Montrose group, but we will see the fruition of his work in this county for years to come.
You can watch Scriber’s statements to the city below.
