Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
City officials in Oregon celebrated the groundbreaking for the Town Center Apartments on June 24, which is the third phase of the overall town center project that continues to come to fruition.
“All we've been through and all the time it took to get to this point makes it a little more exciting,” mayor Michael Seferian said.
City administrator Joel Mazur opened the groundbreaking ceremony at 2965 Pickle Rd., stating that the market-rate, 208-unit, six-building apartment complex is expected to take approximately two years to complete.
Several city officials and others were on hand including Seferian, councilman Steve Salander, councilwoman Beth Ackerman, councilman Paul Drake, Nathan Waggner of the project’s developer Cash Waggner & Associates, and OEDF executive director, Rebecca Bennett.
“This has been a long process, but Rome wasn't built overnight,” Drake said.
The groundbreaking represented the beginning of the third phase of the project. The first phase was the single-family residential property just off Pickle. The second phase included the commercial side directly off Navarre Avenue.
City promotional materials said the apartments will offer “convenient access to shopping, work and recreational spaces for all residents” and that the units will include solid wood cabinets, granite countertops and washer/dryer hookups.
Waggner said the project will include an office complex, a fitness center and a business center. He said residents should expect work to begin right away and witness framing go up by the summer.
“We expect to start digging footers as early as next week on the first two buildings,” he said. “The next three will be ready to go right after that. And we’ll start going vertical probably in the summer.”
All told, residents will be able to start moving in just over two years from now.
“The excitement level is just the time it takes to get to this point,” Waggner said. “It seems like it can never happen fast enough. You can never get contractors in here fast enough. Supply chain has been our biggest problem. For Oregon, I think it's going to bring some much-needed housing.”
Waggner credited the city of Oregon’s officials for getting the project to this point.
“The city was very instrumental in bringing some developer tools to the mix, including tax abatement, TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funds for the infrastructure on the perimeter, the roads and the utilities,” he said. “They have been very easy to deal with from a regulatory and review standpoint and setting up the sale as well.
Bennett said this project will continue to help with creating long-term sustainable tax revenue in Oregon.
“I don't live in Oregon, but I care deeply about the people who do,” she said. “I care about the students in your schools, the small businesses lining your streets, and the families working hard daily to build something here.
“That's why today matters. The Oregon Town Center apartments aren’t just another development, but it’s a statement. It’s a sign that the city believes enough to invest in its support. These 208 new homes will do more than fill a need for housing. They’ll bring people into the heart of businesses, restaurants, schools, and parks.
“They'll strengthen the town center and the surrounding neighborhoods, not just through foot traffic but through long-term sustainable tax revenue that stays right here to support city services, safety, and schools.”
For people like Seferian, he said an added reason for excitement about the program’s advancement is because of how long it has taken to come together, which included Covid slowing things down. At the same time, he said that may have actually been a blessing in disguise.
“We started years ago,” Seferian said. “We were slowed down by the COVID craze that came in. But as I told others, COVID probably did us a favor because at the original onset of this project, we were going to have two retail anchor stores.
“And those types of businesses really don't happen in the retail market anymore because of the competition through internet sales and whatnot. So, it slowed us down and kept that from happening and did us a favor. So now it's developing the way the current retail market goes, and big anchor stores really aren't part of that.”
Seferian is not only excited for the town center’s development, which will help with entertainment events such as Boom Fest, but he said it is the city’s goal to go even further building off the project.
“One thing will lead to the next and what we do hope for the future is to continue this road through the Y property where the dog park is,” he said. “We have some other property back there where we could build a Civic Center featuring an ice arena, and we have those in our plans and our comprehensive land-use plan that's going on right now.
“Everyone that was involved with that was well in favor of an arena there so long as we could provide financing for it. With our industrial growth happening right now, we believe that's a real strong possibility.
“Things are happening. We'll still have to have some patience, but I think you're going to see one thing after another happen, so reality is more in sight than it was when we started this project.”
Seferian said the purchase of the old Kmart property was crucial to the project, especially with connecting all the different phases of the overall town center.
“One of the things we always addressed is that the city of Oregon had no downtown, had no town center, or some focal point in the city,” he said. “We didn't think that could actually happen until the Kmart property became available. We had to act very fast to purchase that because if someone else landed it, it would seal off all this additional property back here forever.
“We had to take a risk. We had to calculate what we could possibly do very fast just to get the ownership of that property so that we could make sure this land that we're standing on had something to connect to. And it's the only parcel left along Route 2 that has this opportunity. We had one shot, and we had to take it. Then we had to develop patience.”
For Mazur, he made sure to note that the project was a group effort.
“A lot of the staff here spent a lot of time working on this project, building the roads, designing the roads, project management, mowing, maintenance, review of building plans, inspections, all of the things,” he said. “And the work's not done for them, and for us.
“But we're breaking ground and hopefully within two years, give or take, this will be fully developed. I wanted to give thanks to all of the staff involved in this and the Oregon Economic Development Foundation leadership for stepping in and being a partner in all of this.”
