White Castle to Build Plant in Vandalia; Cengage Renews Lease in Northern Kentucky

By the Editors of Commercial Property Executive

July 31, 2012

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor Columbus-based White Castle broke ground last week on a new food processing plant in Vandalia, near the Dayton International Airport. Gov. John Kasich, White Castle CEO E. W. “Bill” Ingram III and Vandalia city officials attended the groundbreaking ceremony. The new 75,000-square-foot plant will be situated in the Stonequarry Crossings business [...]

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Columbus-based White Castle broke ground last week on a new food processing plant in Vandalia, near the Dayton International Airport. Gov. John Kasich, White Castle CEO E. W. “Bill” Ingram III and Vandalia city officials attended the groundbreaking ceremony.

The new 75,000-square-foot plant will be situated in the Stonequarry Crossings business park and will be built in two phases. The family-owned hamburger restaurant chain will invest $18 million in the first phase of construction. When finished, the facility will produce frozen hamburgers and cheeseburgers for distribution to grocery and convenience stores across the United States. It will also bring 100 permanent jobs to Vandalia.

Work on the first phase will start this fall. The facility will include a main production floor for raw and cooked food, a raw material freezer, a temperating freezer, a packing room, warehouse, offices and more. It should be completed by the summer of 2013. The developers are aiming for LEED certification.

“We’re proud to call Ohio home and excited about these future plans to add more jobs in our home state,” said Ingram. “The Ohio economic development team is a tremendous partner. We’re enthusiastic about the Vandalia site, and we’re honored that our family-owned business can be a jobs creator, investing with a new production facility.”

In other real estate-related news, Cengage Learning–a provider of teaching, learning and research solutions for the academic, professional and library markets–recently renewed its lease for 834,000 square feet of space at 10650 Toebben Drive in Independence, Ky. According to CBRE Inc., this is one of the largest industrial lease renewals in the Greater Cincinnati area.

The building is Cengage’s primary distribution center for books. It includes 60,000 square feet of office space. The 12-year lease renewal helps keep about 700 jobs in the region. Colliers International represented Cengage Learning in the transaction, while CBRE Inc. represented the building’s landlord, a private partnership based in Boston.