BY WALT SCHAEFER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Matrixx Marketing Inc., at Sherman Avenue and Montgomery Road, has become Norwood's largest employer with more than 2,000 workers. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

NORWOOD - Ten years ago Tuesday, the last Chevrolet Camaro rolled out of a General Motors assembly plant here and zoomed into history.

And with it, people here thought, went Norwood's economic health - and its future.

The closing of the plant, which Norwood had relied on for 64 years, was a devastating blow. It left 4,300 people - roughly 35 percent of the city's earnings tax base - without jobs. The 3 million-square-foot plant stood silent, never to reopen.

Many observers said blue collar Norwood was so gravely injured by the GM plant's loss it could never survive.

But survive it did.

Since then, 4,500 jobs have been created. Yearly earnings tax revenues are higher today than when GM closed. New, upscale office development has sprouted where cars once were born.

"If the revitalization of Norwood is not at the top of the list nationwide of community recoveries, it is right up there,'' said Richard Starr, senior vice president of Economics Research Associates Corp., an international Chicago-based consulting firm specializing in helping communities recover from plant closings.

Norwood's recovery can be attributed to smart economics, a vision to diversify with office development, a strategic location in the heart of a major metropolitan area, a committed, strong local government, and the help of General Motors, which agreed to raze the plant.

"That city has seen more than $200 million in business reinvestment in 10 years,'' said Mr. Starr, whose company has assisted communities recovering from industrial plant closings and military base phase outs. He consulted with a Norwood task force after GM left.

"So often, a plant closing turns into a bad story. Norwood's is a good story to tell.''

'A graveyard feeling'

Cleon Montgomery remembers Aug. 28, 1987.

Ten years ago this week, the last shift ended at the GM plant in Norwood. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

It was the day after the plant closed. He went back into the factory where he worked as a United Auto Workers (UAW) union committeeman for 22 years. There was no sound, no din of assembly line machinery, no bright, white arcs from the welding shop.

"It was gigantic - and it was so quiet. It was gloomy without the lights; a graveyard feeling. You walked and your footsteps echoed,'' said Mr. Montgomery, 51, who still lives here and works for GM at a parts facility in Sharonville.

"It was one of the hardest days of my life. It's not quite like losing a family member, but it's close.''

The day before, the plant had been filled with emotion.

"Some men were crying. Some were furious, full of anger that GM had betrayed them. They didn't tear anything up. They were good, hard workers frustrated and lost,'' Mr. Montgomery said.

Ron Rankin, UAW 674 president then, remembers the last day, too.

"I shook hands with guys, a lot of friends, whom I have not seen since,'' said Mr. Rankin, 58, who turned down a transfer to Dayton and retired here after 31 years at the plant.

About 70 percent eventually took reassignments, scattering to some 30 different plants as far as Louisiana, Texas and California.

The closing and the transfers caused hardships for some.

There were financial problems and bankruptcies, because idle workers did not draw the same money in union support they did on the job.

"The saddest problems were the separations and divorces and families torn apart. There were relocations, and wives did not want to go,'' Mr. Montgomery said.

"Understand, that plant was a family that looked out for each other. This is a prideful town that stuck together at the toughest of times. That plant may not be here any more, but the town is - and they love Norwood.''

City pulls together

Rick Dettmer, Norwood's community development director in 1987, still has the job. He remembers it as "a very dark year.'' And 1988 was not much better.

To add insult to the GM pullout, the city saw another long-time anchor business - LeBlond-Makino, a machine tool manufacturer - close and bleed another 250 jobs from the wounded city.

"But, we did have a vision,'' Mr. Dettmer said. "When you have an industrial plant, it's very rare that you have 4,300 employees on a 60-acre site. If we developed it back into industrial, we might have made back 500 to 1,000 jobs at best. If the plant was not torn down, we're looking at warehousing.

"The only chance we had of regaining the jobs lost was to redevelop the site into office. Office means a high-density, multistory (development), where you can get 4,000 jobs on 60 acres.''

The city had another problem in its quest to redevelop: image.

Jokes abounded - even on drive-time radio - about Norwood's blue collar roots. "Norwood was not viewed as an office location'' because the city had no track record for office development, Mr. Dettmer said.

And that image - fostered by more than six decades of blue collar workers toting lunch pails into GM - was hard to hurdle.

Then Mayor Joseph Sanker formed a community-wide task force composed of business and religious leaders, council members from both political parties and interested citizens. The first enterprise zone offering tax incentives to businesses that locate in the city was created.

Current Mayor Joe Hochbein said the reaction of the city then was not one of despair, but resolve, and it speaks to an intangible reason Norwood recovered.

"So often, a plant closing turns into a bad story. Norwood's is a good story to tell." - Richard Starr, senior VP, Economics Research Associates Corp.

"There is a strong sense of community here, and it manifested itself at that time. This can be a tough town politically and there can be a lot of disagreement, but that did not happen when it came to making fundamental decisions after GM closed.

"There also was a commitment on the part of old guard main businesses to stay, and they have since reinvested and grown'' - among them Siemens, U.S. Playing Card, Zumbiel Box and United Dairy Farmers.

Mr. Sanker said citizens' pride in their town and a long-standing trust in government leadership were important as Norwood faced its biggest challenge.

"The community trusted us to lead them out of the crisis to the point they passed an 8-mill property tax increase to keep us solvent. That tells me they believed in us. We moved forward, and we did our job,'' Mr. Sanker said.

Jerry Jones is vice president of Fidelity-Federal Savings Bank - an 85-year-old Norwood institution - and treasurer of the chamber of commerce. He has been a Norwood banker since 1962.

"I remember talk back then of Cincinnati annexing Norwood (because of the GM closing),'' he said. "And, I knew there wasn't a chance. This is a proud, proud town with generations of deep roots. They are proud of their past and proud of their future and proud of their traditions. The Norwood Day Parade is 104 years old.

"I guess I can only describe the strength of community as an inner feeling. It was: ŒDamned if anyone is going to beat us down. We are Norwood, and we will always be Norwood.' ''

Dorothy Fraley, who with her husband, James, has lived in their Floral Avenue home for 40 years, described her town as one of "strong people - their backgrounds are from Appalachia, where roots are deep. They have a strong determination to carry on. That's part of what made Norwood survive.

"People thought we were going to fall apart. We didn't. Now, we are more prosperous than we were.''

Revenue bottoms out

As Rick Dettmer drove down Montgomery Road to his office in those bleak days, he passed "the dinosaur.''

The plant loomed. No office development could happen with it there. The city's greatest asset had become its greatest liability.

"We had an obsolete, antiquated, inefficient, multistory, landlocked building. We realized that if we wanted any chance of viable redevelopment, we needed to tear it down to make it happen, '' Mr. Dettmer said.

The city had no money to raze the building. GM was, at first, reluctant. "GM finally came around, tore down the plant and gave the parking garages to us and cooperated with our efforts to find (an office) developer,'' Mr. Dettmer said.

As the city languished in the first few years after the closing, earnings tax revenues plummeted, dropping 31.4 percent between 1986 and 1989. With no money to fix it, Norwood's infrastructure - parks, roads, buildings, water lines - deteriorated.

In the early '90s, tax revenues began to rebound, but financial constraints remained. The city spent $222,000 on capital improvements in 1992 - only about a fifth of what officials expect to spend this year.

The city faced some acute embarrassments, too. In 1994, two floors of the community center were closed because of fire code violations caused by a leaking roof left unmaintained for years by budget constraints. And, at one point in 1994, several police cruisers, because of age and heavy use, were out of service. And many streets were in deplorable condition.

Signs of recovery

But there were signs that the recovery had begun.

In 1989, the city began using a $3.4 million grant to plan and develop Rookwood Pavilion - an upscale retail and restaurant complex on the site of the old LeBlond-Makino plant at Edwards and Madison roads - a stone's throw from Cincinnati's Hyde Park and Oakley neighborhoods.

In March, 1989, after a long series of discussions about the GM site's future and how to market it, the phone rang.

"It was the most important phone call in the recovery of Norwood,'' Mr. Dettmer said.

From the upper deck of the old GM parking garage, former GM workers Cleon Montgomery and Ron Rankin can see how the GM site has been transformed. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

One of the developers the city was in discussions with, Belvedere Corp., had just purchased Surrey Square, a shopping center across Sherman Avenue from the GM site. The company agreed to build an office building, purely on the speculation it could find tenants. It was 1990 when construction began on Central Parke.

"We took the plunge into Norwood,'' Belvedere President Steve Stein said. "We have been involved in investments in Queensgate'' west of Interstate 75 from downtown Cincinnati. "We realized there was a scarcity of real estate available in the downtown and mid-town locations.''

Belvedere's decision was based on location: "Norwood's access to expressways was superior to Queensgate. It is tied to Interstate 75 and Interstate 71'' via the Norwood Lateral, Mr. Stein said, and there was a large tract of land available.

And the risk? It was "Norwood's blue collar image,'' Mr. Stein said. "Could you attract office customers to Norwood?''

That question was quickly answered. Before Central Parke's first 100,000-square-foot building was finished, Star Bank saw the old GM site as available in a strategic location to banking needs and approached Belvedere to build another 60,000-square-foot office.

The cost of operation and the cost to employees who work at the Norwood offices is less than a downtown facility, said Timothy Fogarty, Star Bank executive vice president. Star Bank employs about 500 in Norwood now, a 25 percent increase from 1993 when it moved in.

As Star Bank was helping to build Norwood's future, Matrixx Marketing Inc. decided to move into the building Belvedere was constructing on speculation. With about 2,000 workers today, Matrixx Marketing Inc., the telemarketing subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell Inc., has become Norwood's largest employer. It operates from three buildings on the GM site, and on urban renewal property acquired by the city.

Curt Stoll, president of Matrixx's business division, said location and access to workers are ideal. "It is in a central area that provides us ready access to an employee base with the support of public transportation to grow our business. GM was even kind enough to leave us a parking garage.''

Add to major tenants the clusterings of small offices on the GM site. Combined today, they account for about 500,000 square feet of new, fully leased office space, with 4,000 of the 4,500 new jobs, Mr. Dettmer said.

Diversity vital

While the GM site was changing, two other developments were spurring more economic revitalization, Mr. Dettmer said.

Many people think mistakenly that Rookwood Pavilion is in Hyde Park, but it's in the southeast corner of Norwood. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

In 1993, developers completed the Rookwood Pavilion complex - transforming the old machine tool plant into an upscale retail mecca with specialty shops and restaurants and about 300 new jobs.

On the other side of town, the Hamilton County Development Co., created by the Hamilton County commissioners to spur economic growth countywide, saw Norwood's tentative future and decided to locate the county's business incubator in the vacant Foy Paint building on Mentor Avenue.

David Main, director of the business center, said the idea is to help fledgling small businesses get on their feet by providing affordable space and other start-up assistance.

Since it opened in 1989, 67 businesses have graduated from the incubator. Today, 32 are using the facility - with about 120 employees on site. Some of those businesses, such as the Sant Corp., a computer software programing company, stayed in town.

"We started with 10 employees. We have 25 now. They live in Northern Kentucky, West Chester, Hamilton and in between. I can't think of a more central location than Norwood,'' company President Tom Sant said.

Mr. Dettmer said the city has recovered with great diversity. "Even if Matrixx would leave, we would survive and still have attractive office space available in the heart of a major metropolitan area. It would be gobbled up. Where we had three businesses before - GM, LeBlond-Makino and Foy Paint - there are now 150.''

Future is bright

Rosemary Huff has lived in Norwood 35 years. She sits on her front porch on Beech Street, across from tiny Marsh Park - a spot of green in the neighborhood of nice, two-story frame homes.

James and Dorothy Fraley listen to the Reds game on the porch of their Floral Avenue home, where they've lived for 40 years. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

New swings and other playground equipment have gone up. A new shelter house beckons neighbors to picnic. "It used to be a year ago nobody would play there. Now the kids are back,'' she said.

Norwood is back, too.

"Our future is bright,'' Mayor Hochbein said. "We need to continue to invest money in our city, and the Number 1 priority today is streets, and the next to restore more of our central business district. . . . Then we need to maintain it.

"I'd like to see a return of some of the shops we lost - the shoe store and restaurants and a place a lady can go to for a bolt of cloth, a community newspaper. That gives a community texture.''

More development is envisioned for the southern end of Norwood - businesses to support the new convocation center planned by Xavier University. The needs of visitors, sports fans and students will spur business growth, officials agree.

Just west of the point where Carthage Avenue meets Montgomery Road, with the hum of the Norwood Lateral to the south, a 15-acre asphalt parking lot is bordered by a rusting chain-link fence.

Weeds peek between cracks in the asphalt. Few cars have parked there since the 1980s, when the lot was full daily - additional parking for workers at the GM plant.

GM still owns the lot - the last vestige of the auto manufacturer that controlled this town's destiny for almost 61Ž2 decades.

A "For Sale'' sign hangs on the fence. Potential developers have been traipsing into City Hall with ideas on scrolls of blueprint.

"It is the last large parcel of prime open land in Norwood,'' Mr. Dettmer said. "We want to develop it right.''

There's a new destiny in Norwood in 1997: "That site's zoned office,'' Mr. Dettmer said.

CITY CAN ONCE AGAIN AFFORD TO FIX ITSELF
HOUSING ENJOYS RENAISSANCE