The long-quiet Sugar Creek Packing Co. site on East Kemper Road is getting a very different kind of second act. People Working Cooperatively is turning the shuttered meatpacking plant into a roughly 70,000-square-foot headquarters and operations campus, aiming to pull staff, vehicles and materials onto what it describes as a roughly 14.2-acre site. The nonprofit says repair shops, storage and training facilities will all land under one roof, a move leaders argue will help crews move faster across southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky while growing the organization’s volunteer and outreach muscle.
The organization purchased the former packing plant in 2025, and market records list the building at roughly 69,000 square feet with an acquisition price of about $8.4 million. PWC leaders describe the full rehabilitation and build-out as a roughly $15 million undertaking and say construction is slated to start this spring, with phased occupancy expected later in 2026. Local reporting and market data note that those figures cover both the initial purchase and the renovation budget rather than only the property’s sale price.
According to People Working Cooperatively, the Sharonville campus will support about 135 full-time staff members along with a large volunteer corps that together tackle thousands of home repairs and accessibility projects each year. For decades, the group has concentrated on emergency repairs, weatherization work and accessibility modifications for low-income, elderly and disabled homeowners across the Tri-State. The announcement frames the move as a chance to centralize dispatch, training and materials so that crews can spend less time juggling logistics and more time actually fixing homes.
Design and construction
SHP Architecture & Design is overseeing the renovation plans, and Unit Building Design is set to launch construction on the former meatpacking shell later this summer, according to the nonprofit. “This building is the foundation for that, allowing us to bring all our operations under one roof, making our impact bigger and stronger than ever,” PWC president Jock Pitts said in a statement. Inside, plans call for a maintenance shop for vehicles, expanded storage for repair supplies and dedicated training space for both crews and volunteers.
Neighbors and the street
Nearby residents have already spotted site clearing and infrastructure work along Kemper Road, and some have raised concerns about traffic, staging and tree removal tied to the redevelopment. City officials and nonprofit representatives say they are coordinating on access, construction staging and neighborhood impacts, while pointing to the project’s job and service benefits for the area. Local coverage and city communications reflect that mix of enthusiasm and unease as Sharonville works to lure new investment to older industrial corridors.
The transformation of a 14.2-acre former meatpacking campus into an operations hub fits into a broader regional push to reuse large industrial shells for new civic and commercial purposes, highlighting both the scale and the cost of adaptive reuse projects in the Tri-County market. Market data put the property at about 69,148 square feet across multiple parcels, underscoring why organizations opt to renovate what is already on site instead of building from scratch when they need a big footprint. For additional background on the sale, redevelopment plans and community response, readers can turn to local reporting and public filings.
Sources: Cincinnati Business Courier; Newmark Research; Spectrum News; People Working Cooperatively (press release); WCPO; CoStar; Cincinnati Enquirer.
