Optical Village

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Optical Village

Rickenbacker Airforce Base Columbus, Ohio Pizzutti Real Estate Airborne Express (now DHL)

In 1996, Mark Steele - Director of Operations for Cole Vision unit of Cole National of Cleveland, OH approached Steve Williams of Airborne Express about establishing a competitive expedited distribution solution. The intent was to help offset the leverage that Fedex had servicing Cole Vision from its Memphis, TN distribution center. The idea was to establish an American version of a Keiretsu focused upon serving the optical industry in an expedited delivery setting.

Steele suggested the term Optical Village to describe what they wanted to create as a Keiretsu for the prescription eyeware optical industry. The model would reduce inventory, speed delivery, create shared knowledge between vendors and customers and provide short order to delivery cycles.

Steve Williams introduced CB Richard Ellis representatives and Jim Miller of Pizzutti who was the preferred developer that was aligned with Airborne Express.

Cole Vision offered the following specifications: 1. The building needed to be large enough to house Cole Vision and several of its key vendors and needed to be at least 250,000 sqft. 2. The building had to be inside of the Free Trade Zone to provide tarrif and tax benefits on the products being sourced from Europe and Asia, primarily frames and lenses.

The vision included a strategy for the development of employees to serve the optical industry which was provided for by a variety of local institutions.

Pizzutti specified that it was reluctant to build a building on specification without at least 60% of the space signed for at the time construction was initiated.

Cole Vision chose Essilor and John Sapio - Director of Distribution for Essilor as the initial, primary vendor partner.

Steele delivered a proposal to the board of Cole Vision/Cole National and Sapio presented the proposal to the board of Essilor. They were approached simultaneously with interlocking proposals. Pizutti, Cole National and Essilor simultaneously agreed to that if the other parties committed, they were committed to build/lease space in the new building. Cole National and Essilor solicited a long list of other parties to secure space in the optical village.

Ultimately the Village housed major optical operations Cole, Essilor and a long list of frame, lens and specialty services providers. Eventually, Wal-Mart, VSP and several other competitors to Cole Vision also chose to locate in the Optical Village.