Business View Civil Municipal - July 2023

178 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7 position between these two well-known cities. The origins of its name can also be traced back to the home of its founder, Stephen Vail, who hailed from Middletown, New Jersey. The city’s prime location served as the perfect base for an active agricultural trading community with riverboats, canal barges, and freight wagons moving wheat, corn, tobacco, livestock, fruits, and vegetables to eastern markets and beyond. Later on, four railroad lines complemented the town’s trading dynamism. Middletown’s early industrial sector centered around tobacco, paper, and especially, steel. It first became a city in 1886 and 14 years later, in 1900, George M. Verity founded the American Rolling Mill Company (ARMCO) and built its first steel mill in Middleton to supply the flat-rolled steel he required for his roofing operations. The company’s successor, the AK Steel Holding Corporation, which acquired ARMCO in 1999, was itself purchased in 2020 by Cleveland- Cliffs, the largest producer of flat-rolled steel in North America that currently employs about 2,100 workers at its Middletown facility, representing one of Middletown’s largest employers and economic drivers. Poised for commercial and industrial growth Middletown of today, although steeped in agricultural history has grown to become an innovative and forward-thinking city that is embracing economic development and preparing for it head-on. Although the city may have been viewed by many in previous years as more of an industrial town with steel being a major economic base, the City has managed to transform itself and is working hard to rebrand as a modern, thriving, and progressive community with plenty to offer visitors and residents. The City is taking a proactive approach to embrace the economy going forward by leveraging its location, accessibility, and available sites and buildings throughout the city, along its I-75 corridor, for mixed- use or light industrial development. A desirable location positioned equidistant between Cincinnati and Dayton, the potential is there to bring in larger employers to its industrial corridor, and potentially, smaller businesses could pop up accordingly to support their needs as well as the needs of their employees. As part of Middletown’s overall business incentive strategy, the City has introduced attractive tax incentives that are both flexible for potential commercial and industrial interests and help to expedite the new business attraction approach offered by the City. Tax incentives include tax abatements, tax credits, various grants, low-interest loan options, and access to workforce development streams to help with connecting employers with a well-prepared employee base. With these well-constructed financial incentives, the city has done its due