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Rock Springs Business Park to have its first tenant

CHESTER – After many years of redevelopment and marketing efforts, the long-vacant site of a former Hancock County pottery soon will have a new tenant. Heav

Local News

Mar 13, 2023

Rock Springs Business Park, which once was the site of the Taylor, Smith and Taylor pottery in Chester, soon will have its first tenant. The Business Development Corp. announced Friday a lease agreement which will see Heavy Iron Oilfield Services relocate its operation from Canonsburg to Chester, bringing with it 75 jobs with plans to create another 25. (File photo)

CHESTER – After many years of redevelopment and marketing efforts, the long-vacant site of a former Hancock County pottery soon will have a new tenant.

Heavy Iron Oilfield Services, LP will relocate its operations from Canonsburg, Pa., to the Rock Springs Business Park, which once was the home of Taylor, Smith and Taylor Pottery in Chester. The relocation involves a long-term lease with the Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle, which owns the property.

“We have a prospect moving into the building,” Marvin Six, executive director of the BDC, explained Friday afternoon.

Six indicated the new tenant will bring 75 jobs with it as part of the relocation, with a plan to add 25 new jobs.

According to the announcement by the BDC, Heavy Iron provides well testing and frac flowback services to the oil and gas industry, specifically focusing on the eastern United States.

The company has been in operation since 2011, working particularly in the Marcellus and Utica basins.

“We are thrilled to be moving our company to Chester,” stated John Van Slyke, the company’s president. “The site is central to our operations and provides the room for us to expand as we continue to experience unprecedented growth at Heavy Iron.”

Van Slyke was born in Canada, attending college in Missouri and moving to Pittsburgh in 2010 before starting the company a year later. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on Wednesday.

Taylor, Smith and Taylor operated a pottery in Chester from 1900 to 1981, producing dinnerware, hotell ware, toilet sets and specialty pieces.

The factory sat vacant for 30 years, until the BDC, with support through a loan from the Hancock County Commission and two cleanup grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, took over the site, demolishing the former pottery and redeveloping the nine acres of the property.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection issued a certificate of completion for the site in 2018.

A 30,000-square-foot spec building was constructed with assistance from the West Virginia Economic Development Authority, United Bank and Starvaggi Charities, with the property being rechristened Rock Springs Business Park.

“This was a contaminated site that no one wanted to touch for over three decades,” noted Jacob Keeney, assistant director of the BDC. “The BDC was able to put it back into productive use and bring nearly 100 jobs to the region. This is a major brownfield success story that could not have been accomplished without our partners at the WVEDA.”

(Howell can be contacted at chowell@weirtondailytimes.com, and followed via Twitter @CHowellWDT)

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CHESTER – After many years of redevelopment and marketing efforts, the long-vacant site of a former Hancock County pottery soon will have a new tenant. Heav