Crain’s Cleveland Business June 19, 2023 10:00 AM STAN BULLARD
Weston Inc., the Warrensville Heights owner-operator of a multistate industrial empire, has launched its first speculative building project in Columbus, near John Glenn Columbus International Airport.
The Asher family-owned company has owned properties in Columbus for about 25 years, said Suzanne Broadbent, Weston’s spokesman, but the 207,740-square-foot project is its first construction project there.
“It’s also our first speculative building in that market, but we don’t expect it to be unoccupied for long,” she said. “You know us. We saw an opportunity and seized on it.”
The building will sit on about 13 acres. It will have a 32-foot ceiling and 17 docks. ARCO, the national design-build contractor with a Columbus office, is the general contractor.
Weston owns about 1 million square feet of industrial property in the Columbus area, Broadbent said, adding that it has long been a good market for the company.
The project was based on Columbus market opportunities, she said, and wasn’t inspired by construction of the Intel chip factory there.
Other markets outside its Northeast Ohio home that Weston has properties in are Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Closer to home, it’s building a warehouse in Euclid and is a partner in new business parks on former Ford Motor Co. sites, called Forward Innovation Center East in Walton Hills and Forward Innovation Center West in Brook Park.
