Trentino Sviluppo

«Omga wasn’t a factory; it was the factory of Grigno. It was the first manufacturing activity of our industrial area and, by the end of the 1970s, it provided work for 150 people. Today, from the ashes of this reality, we start a new positive experience that will be extremely exciting for the craft workers who decided to invest in new workplaces and development projects». Leopoldo Fogarotto, mayor of Grigno, welcomes the opening of the craft trades hub of Grigno, Condominio Grigno, with a hint of emotion in his voice.

After closing the doors in 2010, the 19,000 square meters of the industrial site belonging to Omga S.p.a. - a company that manufactured timber processing equipment and headquartered right at the heart of the industrial area of the small municipality of Grigno, in Valsugana, on the border between Trentino and Veneto - is coming back to life by welcoming five enterprises that display at best the potential of local craft trades.

The «productive condominium» concept: a shared workspace with different companies under the same roof

After the former industrial site of Calzedonia in Avio and the one belonging to Lowara in Malé, another important former industrial facility crosses the word «former» off its name and welcomes back businesses and workers. Following the same methodology used in the past, a strategic area that turned into an unproductive site after the collapse of a big company was bought by the Autonomous Province of Trento through Trentino Sviluppo and it was then given to small local companies in order to restore and renovate the abandoned facilities and create a new industrial hub, a «productive condominium».
In Grigno, this new «productive condominium» hosts under the same roof different construction businesses specialized in electrical and thermo-hydraulic plants, and iron and metal waste processing works. Thanks to this space newly made available to them, these enterprises will have the possibility to grow and hire new workers without having to worry about the problems relating to the small spaces available in the town centre that in the past often affected their development.

Video testimony by Christian Furlan

One year of renovation works to «dismantle» the old factory

In order to turn the abandoned industrial site into a full-functioning «productive condominium», Trentino Sviluppo had to invest 673,000 euros, an investment that in part will be covered by the companies using the space.

The renovation works required almost one year and they involved a full renovation of the roof, the creation of new access roads and pavements, and the installation of new electrical, water, and sewage systems. Besides, the works involved also the installation of technological plants, perimeter fencing and walls to divide the different building plots that were made completely self-sufficient and customized according to the technical-production requirements of the single companies.

The companies involved are growing and creating new jobs

What in the past was one big single facility has been divided into many small-medium manufacturing lots where five craft companies have found their new home: Impresa Edile Gasperini Lucio, Termoidraulica Gasperini, Lumen Impianti Elettrici, and the sole proprietorships of Furlan Cristian (metalwork) and Gonzo Manlio (collection and processing of iron and metal waste).

Despite the current economic crisis, Trentino Sviluppo is still receiving applications for the use of the site and it has already started the bureaucratic procedure to bring four new companies to the site, including some of interesting size and coming from outside the region.

These companies will bring projects that will provide growth and new jobs and maybe, in a few years from now, people will start seeing the wound left by the shutdown of the Omga factory in Grigno as a hardened but painless scar.