Derby hopes new railroad crossing helps fill industrial park

The city of Derby will mark on Wednesday the completion of improved access to its 15-year-old business and industrial park.

Officials also are giving a new name to what is now the West End Business Park, west of K-15 and just north of Madison Avenue.

The 30-acre park, the ground for which was acquired by the city in 1998, has 8.75 acres of empty lots and saw its last new tenant arrive in 2009.

Officials hope a new, $1.3 million railroad crossing on Madison, completed in July, and a new identity will fill the remaining five lots.

“It’s … part of a re-branding effort for the whole park and west end of Derby,” said Taylour Tedder, Derby’s development manager. “We’re trying to get it back out there, and now it’s a little more accessible.”

Tedder said the new crossing should make it easier to enter the south side of the park, especially for large trucks. The crossing replaces one at nearby Cherry Street, which was farther from the park and was relatively steep.

“The crossing at Cherry Street was very difficult for people to use, and it was out of the way for trucks to get in there,” he said, noting that it took about 10 years to get the new crossing.

The park was previously known as Derby Business Park. But that name was too similar to a competing, private park farther north at 55th and Oliver, called Derby Corporate Park.

“It gives a distinct identity from Derby Corporate Park,” Tedder said. “(And) we’re going to be starting this whole west-end study of Derby, so this (industrial park re-naming) is going along with that.”

On Wednesday afternoon, following a tour of some of the five companies that operate at the park, Derby city officials and members of its community development advisory board will attend a ribbon cutting at the West End park’s Madison Avenue entrance.

The park’s current occupants include BRG Precision Products, Premium Auto Restoration, Mid Continent Controls, Mockry & Sons Machine Co., and Automotive Solutions and Absolute Custom Car Care.

For more information on the park, see derbyweb.com/bizpark.

Bradley Tidemann of J.P. Weigand & Sons is the park’s agent.

This story was originally published September 2, 2014 at 3:37 PM with the headline "Derby hopes new railroad crossing helps fill industrial park."