Welcome to the Business Journal Archives
Search for articles below, or continue to the all new BusinessJournalDaily.com now.
Search
Blocksom’s Patriot Land Co. Buys Calex, Crab Creek Sites
CAMPBELL, Ohio – The sprawling and long vacant former Calex Corp. property on Wilson Avenue here has been purchased by Patriot Land Co. LLC of Lisbon, a holding company affiliated with Patriot Water Treatment LLC of Warren and Patriot Energy Partners LLC, all operated by entrepreneur Andrew Blocksom.
Blocksom’s Patriot Land Co. LLC also has purchased land on the northeast side of Youngstown -- a parcel legally identified as within the Crab Creek Industrial Village.
Patriot paid $525,000 for the Calex property, $216,000 for the Crab Creek site. The transactions were closed Dec. 27 and Dec. 26, respectively. Sellers were the Calex Corp. and Crab Creek Industrial, according to public records.
“We’re just acquiring some real estate in the area, thinking of doing some future projects,” Blocksom told The Business Journal. “We haven’t decided what we’re going to do other than reinvest in the area and add jobs.”
The Crab Creek property sits on Wydesteel Avenue, where Extreme Machine & Fabricating Co. operates a small shop. “They have a lease,"Blocksom said, “and we’re happy to have them as tenants for as long as they want to be there.”
Blocksom’s Patriot Water Treatment made news in 2011 and 2012 for its eventually successful legal battle with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. His Patriot Energy Partners also made news last year in successfully defending a lawsuit involving leases it negotiated for mineral rights.
Patriot Water employs 25 at its Warren plant. The company treats brine wastewater produced by shale drilling companies during the hydraulic fracturing process, and disposes of the water through the city of Warren’s wastewater treatment plant.
Patriot Energy and Blocksom were among the defendants in a recently adjudicated lawsuit in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court in which a jury found in favor of the company and its president. The complaint, filed by Starkey family, claimed Patriot used deceptive business tactics to leases at a fraction of their worth, then flipped them to Chesapeake Energy Corp. “From day one, we have said that we did everything properly, and the jury took less than 30 minutes to arrive at the same conclusion,” Blocksom said following the verdict.
Asked Monday whether it is logical to assume that the Calex and Crab Creek projects likely would involve some facet of the emerging oil and gas industry, Blocksom said, “Could very well be. We haven’t determined what we’re going to do specifically. We’re looking at diversification, perhaps industrial machining. All options are available.”
Jack Dill, administrator for the city of Campbell, says municipal officials have asked the broker who handled the Calex transaction to arrange a meeting with the property's new owners. “He’s supposed to set it up in the next week or two,” Dill said. “They want to clean it up [the Calex property] before they sit down and talk with us.”
Calex was an aluminum extrusion company formed by the Stavich brothers in 1952. The company was sold in 1992 to an investment group that operated it for some time as Pro-Fab Industries.
By 2005 the plant had returned to its Calex Corp. name and was operating under another ownership group. In September of that year, the owners announced they were downsizing operations and the plant eventually would be closed.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our twice-monthly print edition.