ELYRIA — A $1.9 million grant from the Ohio Department of Development will be used to turn a former industrial site believed to be contaminated with hazardous materials into a prime area for redevelopment.

City leaders learned Friday it has received  the money from the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund, Elyria Economic Development Director Don Brackenhoff said.

The money, part of $28 million awarded by the state to 16 communities across the state, will be used to clean up industrial properties on Garden Street and Woodford Avenue.

Businessman David French owns some of the  property, while the city owns the rest.

Brackenhoff said the city became involved with the improvement of the property three years after ARNCO Corp., locally doing business as A-D Technologies, expressed interest in moving from an adjacent property onto the site.

ARNCO makes equipment for cables that are used by telephone and cable companies. The company employs about 140 people in Elyria who contribute about $110,000 in annual income tax to the city. The company had said that if it couldn’t relocate to the adjacent property, it would have to move.

Before the deal could be finalized, however, Brackenhoff said several unusable and potentially unsafe buildings on the property had to be removed. Also, the railroad spur on site needed to be updated and the potential environmental contamination of the property needed to be remedied.

State grants awarded earlier this year took care of the first two problems, and ARNCO has since started its move to a larger facility on the property.

Now the city will use the grant money to clean up the hazardous material that was left on the site by former owners. Over the past century, portions of the property were occupied by Fox Furnace Co., American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corp., and the Tappan Oven Co., Brackenhoff said.

“This was very important to ARNCO but was not a stumbling block to prevent them from signing a lease for their new property,” Brackenhoff said. “Still, we see this as work that must be completed as it will position the site for possible redevelopment.”

It is a prime location for corporate division headquarters or primary manufacturing facilities in the industries of plastics and rubber products manufacturing, fabricated metal manufacturing, metalworking machinery and warehousing/distributing, according to the application  submitted by the city to the state.

The estimated value of the entire property is about $1.1 million.

And, while no one is slated to move into the property beyond ARNCO at this point, Brackenhoff said the city will aggressively market it.

“We hope to have a brownfield developer come in as the property will be redevelopment ready in the near future,” he said.

The grant awarded Friday builds on the city’s earlier successful effort to secure $580,000 from the state that kept ARNCO in Elyria.

The city nearly missed its opportunity for the $580,000, however, by failing to get its application to the county commissioners before the March 20 deadline. Each eligible county was limited to one project application, and the commissioners — assuming there were no other applicants — decided to seek a grant for the county airport.

But once it was learned that ARNCO possibly would leave Elyria if the money wasn’t secured, commissioners tossed the airport application and backed the Elyria bid.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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