CINCINNATI - Messer Construction Co. has struck a deal with the city of Cincinnati to build its new corporate headquarters on a five-acre site in the West End, relocating 116 jobs from Bond Hill and creating 40 new jobs over three years.
The Cincinnati Planning Commission is being asked to approve the sale of a city-owned parking lot at 904 Cutter Street to facilitate the project. A report that accompanies the request shows Messer plans to invest $7.5 million in a 75,000-square-foot headquarters building on the site of the old Butternut Bakery on Court Street. The building will be LEED certified for energy efficiency and constructed in two phases.
Messer hopes to start construction this fall, with completion slated for next September.
The city would enable with a tax-increment financing deal and zoning changes that aren’t clearly spelled out in the report. Messer has been searching for a new headquarters site for more than a year, having outgrown its space on Fishwick Drive. The new site a few blocks west of City Hall with highway visibility from I-75.
Messer is Cincinnati’s largest general contractor, with nine regional offices in the Midwest and Southeast. It completed more than $1 billion in commercial construction projects in 2014, making it the nation’s 58th largest contractor, according to its web site. The employee-owned company was founded 1932. Some of its biggest local clients include Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the University of Cincinnati and Christ Hospital.
