Request to use South Towne Mall in Ottawa as storage heads to City Council

The Ottawa Plan Commission recommended a request from Carus LLC, Lotz Logistics and building owner Marty Graff to use South Towne Mall on the city’s South Side as a storage facility for potassium permanganate and sodium permanganate, which are chemicals used for water treatment.

That request now will be heard by the City Council during its next meeting.

Graff said with the passing of a conditional use permit by the City Council the section of the lot furthest east that was formerly a call center for Office Max will be filled for the first time since Office Max merged with Office Depot in 2013. That location was formerly K-Mart before it moved north to what is now RP Lumber.

Carus and Lotz Logistics intend to have between two and five trucks delivering and dropping off containers full of the substances during daylight hours, and per the conditional use permit, drivers will not be allowed to park there overnight.

Potassium permanganate is considered a hazardous material, although Cory Peruba, an environmental engineer with Carus, said the containers it’s kept in are secure.

Kevin Kuntz, with Lotz Logistics, said there has not been an issue in the 20 years his drivers have been carrying Carus products.

“Our products are used to purify drinking water, purify air and to fix contaminated soil,” Peruba said. “This has been made in La Salle for 115 years. I’m sure everyone knows where the Carus Mansion is and the manufacturing facility is right in the same neighborhood.”

Peruba said Carus’ products are used by many different municipalities and the company is in need of more warehouse space.

Ryan Peterson, who also works at Lotz Logistics, said the trucks will be operating on as much of a schedule as can be controlled and the overwhelming majority of the business that comes in and out of the warehouse will be from Carus. If items from any other company comes in, it’ll be storage containers.

“(Neighbors) aren’t going to have to work in and work out where they see a big backup of trucks like they would at say, US Foods,” Peterson said.

Plan Commission member John Stone said it will be up to Graff to be a good neighbor to the other entities at South Town Mall. One concerned citizen came to the meeting not to object to the warehouse but to ask Graff if he could cut the grass on the side facing his home.

Chairman Brent Barron also asked Graff to do some upkeep on the parking lot and cut down a dead tree near the mall’s entrance.