Weston Shares Plans For The Former General Electric Site It Just Acquired

By Kevin Smith  –  Staff Reporter, Cleveland Business Journal

Sep 30, 2022

Weston Inc., a Cleveland-based real estate developer, is considering several uses for 21800 Tungsten Road, the 99-acre site that it bought from General Electric Co. earlier this week.

Weston is marketing the newly acquired site for design-and-build prospects. The company is also likely to build an industrial campus on the site, said Kurt Updegraff, Director of Development.

“We have done some other projects that involve environmental cleanup,” Updegraff said. “It’s something in our wheelhouse. It’s a good opportunity, and the location is great.”

Weston is considering building two to four 100,000-square-foot buildings after demolishing the remaining General Electric structures on the site.
“It’s dependent on what the marketplace tells us,” Updegraff said.

GE sold the large industrial property for $100,000 due to the cleanup required for redevelopment, Updegraff confirmed.

“They wanted a developer that could handle the environmental issues with that site,” Updegraff said. “They recognized there was a significant cost to deal with it.

“The former General Electric site, which the Boston-based conglomerate acquired in 1930 for $100, stopped producing light bulbs several years ago, prior to the sale of its lighting business at Nela Park to Savant Systems Inc.

As a result, Updegraff expects the cleanup to find asbestos and other chemicals that were involved in light-bulb production, such as mercury.

Weston plans to utilize Ohio’s Brownfield Remediation Fund, which is expected to cover three-quarters of the demolition costs.

“During the demolition process, we’ll be working on the government incentives, design and entitlements simultaneously,” Updegraff said.

Demolition is expected to begin next month and wrap up before the end of summer 2023.

Weston is also redeveloping the former Ford industrial plant in Brook Park, Ohio.