Hampden business park to get tenant

HAMPDEN – Hampden’s new business park may look like little more than a paved road winding around hayfields, but that’s changing.

A distribution company is expected to be the first to put its business in the Route 202 Hampden Business and Commerce Park.

Contracts are in place and awaiting town approval for Lot No. 16 in the 132-acre park, according to the town’s economic development director, Bion Foster. At the request of the company, town officials are not releasing the name of the business, pending approval.

But the distribution facility is a subsidiary of D.L. Fox Properties L.P., a Florence, S.C., operation that is listed as the applicant on the site plan, which is scheduled to go before the town’s planning board on July 9. After that, the company will go before the full Town Council for review of the tax increment financing package.

With a very aggressive timeline in place, Foster said construction of the 11,000-square-foot building could begin as early as Aug. 1, with construction completed and the building open for occupancy by the end of the year.

Foster said there are also plans to expand the building in the future, up to 25,000 square feet.

In the meantime, final work is being completed on the first phase of the park, which has 37 lots planned in all, 19 in the first phase. The work includes finishing landscaping and painting the striped lines on the road, Foster said. To keep the grass in check, the lots are mowed and hayed by the original owner of the property, he said.