Lima in running for $300 million project

LIMA — A county-owned industrial park is the lead site for an unnamed $300 million manufacturing project, Allen Economic Development Group Vice President Jeff Sprague said Thursday.

Sprague, speaking at the State Bank & Trust Co.'s 27th annual economic forecast, said a company has narrowed its site list to Lima and a site in Indiana. Sprague declined to put a number of jobs with the project, but said it would be located at Gateway Commerce Park, at state Route 65 and Interstate 75.

The development group is working with Toledo-based Center for Innovative Food Technology to get Gateway certified as a food park. Sprague said he expects a decision some time this year.

“Things were moving in 2011 and at the 11th hour, the project was put on hold for about 18 months,” Sprague said. “We're about six to eight months into that cycle. We just received word that the project is starting to move forward again.”

Lima and the competing site are what's left from a search that began with four sites in Ohio and five in Indiana.

The news came at the bank's forecast, with analysts predicting a period of long, slow growth for the U.S. economy but preparing for a second, small recession dip.

The S&P 500 was largely flat from the beginning of 2011 to the end, but showed some major highs and lows in between, said Jay Hanson, senior vice president with Reliance Financial Services, the wealth management arm of State Bank. The market responded to things such as the European debt crisis, and the debate over raising the government's debt ceiling and resulting S&P's downgrading of the U.S. government's credit rating.

Major events such as those caused investors to leave the market without discerning between good and bad stocks, said Darin Leone, a portfolio strategist with Manning & Napier Advisory.

“People wanted out. They were running for the door,” Leone said. “That depresses the markets, but it creates opportunities.”

The opportunity comes for more discerning investors, who can pick between good and bad stocks, and find bargains in the sell-offs, Leone said.

Corporations and consumers, two of the three major pieces contributing to gross domestic product, are the healthiest they have been in some time, Leone said. Corporations are profitable and consumers have reduced their debt-to-income ratio. The federal government, addressing its fiscal deficit, will drag down the recovery with higher taxes, spending cuts and layoffs, Leone expects.

The weak economy is more susceptible to dips right now, Leon said, but the major recession of 2007 to 2009 wrung out a lot of the excess and uncertainty from the economy.

“If that [first recession] was like falling from the roof of your house, we would liken a second recession to falling from a curb in front of your house to the road, like stubbing a toe,” Leone said.