Uncovering a Gem!!
by Doug Donnelly , last modified July 18. 2011 12:41PM
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OTTAWA LAKE — A couple of Whiteford Township men are sitting on a sleeping giant in the extreme southwestern part of Monroe County.
Michigan Technical Resource Park sits on 332 acres and includes a huge auditorium, space for hundreds of offices, garages and a 1.75-mile oval test track. It was once the Dana Corp. Technical Research Center. Today, it’s the joint business venture of Michael Jones and Roland Brodbeck.
“It’s been working out really, really well,” Mr. Jones said recently during a tour of the facility he offered to The Evening News. “We just need to get more clients in here.”
A few clients have signed contracts and more are intrigued when they see the surroundings. The sprawling facility just to the west of the Ottawa Lake Co-Op has just about everything a new business or a thriving business could need, Mr. Jones said.
“This sat idle for about three years, but we have it all functional again,” Mr. Jones said.
One of the first clients for the inside facilities is Whiteford Township, which is renting 2,000 square feet of office space for its first-ever township hall. The first meeting of the township board in the new headquarters is Tuesday.
One of the first outside clients was Federal Signal, a firm that designs intelligent transportation systems and is using the oval test track to fine tune its iPass system in which cars pass under a monitor that picks up on a bar code. The company is using such systems for uses in turnpikes, for example.
“They are out here twice a month,” Mr. Jones said. “They put 10 drivers on the track in different cars, a mini van, a truck, an assortment of vehicles. They have to travel 700 miles (400 laps) and must be going 80 miles per hour when they go under the sensor.
The track has 15 degree banking, allowing for high speeds to continue around the track.