Oberlin City Council, City administrators, and residents continue to discuss the creation of a new industrial park near Walmart by the intersection of Ohio’s state route 58 and U.S. Route 20. In pursuit of new tax revenue and job opportunities for the City, Oberlin purchased 211 acres from Pittsfield Township in 2022. The land is intended to house a new industrial park, complementing the current park, which is filled to capacity.
The 2026 Update to Oberlin’s Climate Action Plan calls for the creation of an “Eco-Industrial Park,” which it defines as “a development approach that prioritizes high-performance buildings, clean energy readiness, green infrastructure, and collaboration among businesses to reduce emissions, improve resource efficiency, and lower operating costs.” Carrie Porter, Oberlin’s director of planning and development, described the measures she and Sustainability Coordinator Linda Arbogast have considered to make the development environmentally friendly.
“We’re looking at what it would take to offer incentives for people to do things like put solar on their buildings, even maybe [use] wind or geothermal for their buildings,” Porter said. “Incentives to have your buildings LEED certified, or at least LEED compliant, looking at what it would possibly cost to do some carbon offsets.”
The attributes of the proposed industrial park have come under scrutiny by community members and activists. A proposition to extend natural gas to the park has proven to be a particular point of disagreement. According to City Manager Greg Holcomb, Dominion Energy offered to construct an industrial gas pipeline on a City-owned right-of-way, at no cost. Some students and residents, however, oppose providing gas to the park.
Holly Swiglo, College third-year and co-leader of the Oberlin Climate Coalition, expressed suspicion of Dominion Energy as the proposed provider of the extension.
“Dominion is owned by Enbridge, which is the same company that did the NEXUS pipeline and … [and] just really has a history of doing a lot of bad stuff to communities,” Swiglo said.
In 2024, a subsidiary of Enbridge, Inc. bought Dominion Energy Ohio. Enbridge has faced backlash for pipelines it constructed in Minnesota and through Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in Ontario. The company was also partially responsible for the creation of NEXUS Gas Transmission, a pipeline transporting natural gas through Oberlin from Ohio to Michigan. The City attempted, without success, to stop construction of the pipeline via court order.
Councilmember Joe Waltzer, OC ’98, spoke to the Review about his own thoughts regarding the use of gas at the site.
“I do have concerns about expanding gas because I think we as a society need to be moving away from fossil fuels,” Waltzer said. “That being said, I think there are some concerns that it may be more difficult, or challenging, to fill an industrial park with businesses that don’t have a need for gas.”
Waltzer noted that some natural gas is already available at the future location of the park.
“I guess my position is not necessarily whether or not we should allow gas to be run down there … but more that we as a city should be exploring what options are available to us to create as green an industrial park as we can and trying to figure out how to attract and market to people who share our community’s values,” Waltzer said.
According to Holcomb, marketing the site would be difficult without a gas connection. Speaking to the Review, he said that most of the advertising for the location is provided by Team NEO, a chapter of economic development nonprofit Jobs Ohio that compiles information on locations that businesses might be interested in.
“The only reason we’re on that site is because we signed a letter of intent saying that … all utilities, which include natural gas, would be located at the site,” Holcomb said. “If we do not put natural gas there, we will be just delisted from those databases and have to do all the marketing of the site on our own.”
The controversial gas connection isn’t the only issue complicating development of the project.
According to Porter, the site needs access to the local sewer system before any businesses can use it. Holcomb explained that the sewer currently comes to a stop near Walmart, leading City staff to apply for funding to extend it from grants provided by the state of Ohio. Winning that money is made difficult by the presence of a large number of competitors, Holcomb said — including the mega site currently under consideration for construction in New Russia township. The mega site project had requested roughly $60 million, in contrast to the industrial park’s roughly $12-14 million, Holcomb said.
“The unfortunate thing with that is … we’ve had numerous leads to come to our site, and the mega site doesn’t have a user yet, so we would have been further along than they would have been if they would have allowed us to build a sewer with that money,” Holcomb said.
Plans for the eco-industrial park were discussed at a Council Work Session before the regular meeting on March 16, where many students from OCC and community members came to share their thoughts. Councilmembers expressed support for the project, yet said they wanted further discussion on the vision. The matter will be deliberated at future meetings.
