PUBLIC NOTICE: The Chippewa County EDC intend to apply for an EPA Cleanup Grant. Additional details and the opportunity for public comment will take place during the CCEDC Regular Board Meeting on Tuesday, November 5, 2024 at 3:00 PM, located at the General Aviation Building (5019 W Airport Dr, Kincheloe, MI 49788) Board Room on the second floor. A draft of the application will be available for comment.
Since it was created in 1978, The Chippewa County Economic Development has been providing locations for all sorts of business and government activities. Groups in our park range from Superior Fabrication, Kinross Fab & Machine to the county’s 911 Central Dispatch and Consolidated Community School Services.
We host winter car and equipment testing, aviation-based research, and data collection. Corporate jets, celebrities coming to the area for concerts and private pilots from around the world use our General Aviation Terminal and all the services we offer. Some of the tenants in the Air/Industrial Park make high-quality horse bedding and others are first responders like the Sheriff’s Department, Kinross EMS, and the Kinross Volunteer Fire Department. Many businesses in the area are located in buildings originally owned by the CCEDC, or built on CCEDC properties.
Ease of access to a modern commercial airport and the close proximity of Interstate 75 help make our facility easy to
find and easy to access.
Originally developed in 1973, the modern 64 acre Sault Industrial Park is the City’s prime industrial location. The Park is fully serviced with paved roads, curbs and gutters, sewers, water, natural gas, underground electricity, and contemporary industrial park deed restrictions that ensure a clean and pleasant manufacturing environment.
The Park includes the 27,940 square foot Soo Industrial Incubator, a modern manufacturing facility that is available at extremely low lease rates to new start-up industries. Labor training support from our partners at Michigan WORKS! and Lake Superior State University to help new firms with their labor force and technical assistance.
The Park is also the site for Foreign Trade Zone #16, a unique federal incentive program that can be extremely beneficial to firms with a foreign source of raw material or components. Sub-zones can be created throughout the City as well as the entire Eastern Upper Peninsula and northern lower Michigan from the zone.
The Park is within a half-mile of an I-75 freeway interchange with direct non-stop access to Detroit and beyond, and within a half-mile of the International Bridge to Canada. The Park has a strategic location with water, rail, airport, and freeway transportation systems all within a mile of the Park.
The continued growth of light manufacturing and research firms in Sault Ste. Marie has been the catalyst for the design and implementation of a unique Industrial Air Park in the heart of the City. The EDC, in its capacity as the City’s Tax Increment Financing Authority, has developed what was once a 500 acre parcel with a deteriorating 4,700 foot runway in the center, into a thriving 5,200 foot Business-class jet port with an adjacent 80 acre Industrial Air Park. The aviation area has been re-defined to a site of about 100 acres, allowing the development of the adjacent Industrial Air Park, additional commercial property on the I-75 Business Spur, and (soon) the development of a 200 acre parcel on the southwest side of the runway into additional industrial, commercial and housing sites.
