Cre8ive use of a polluted site
Todd Lehman, founder and CEO of Cre8play, has fun at work every day.
An animated tree trunk anchors one of Cre8play’s structures.
Cre8play craftsmen hand-sculpt concrete for a play structure.
Grant program helps growing business find new home
The home of Cre8play is not your typical manufacturing plant. It’s crawling with wolves, spiders and other wild creatures.
“I’m one of the lucky ones,” admits Todd Lehman, founder and CEO (aka “Design Guy”) of Cre8play, which designs and manufactures custom themed play environments for customers around the world. “I get to come to work every day and play.”
The products of that play are inspiring. Take Brendan’s Playground, a colorful bug-themed playground with a giant mushroom, whimsical bugs to climb on, slides, interactive sounds and a fully functional giant-size piano that kids can run, roll and climb across to make their own music. All of Cre8play’s designs are ADA-accessible, Lehman said.
In 1999, Lehman was working for his father’s playground equipment business when the City of Woodbury approached them about creating something with a zoological theme. Designing and seeing the project through to completion “was the most fun I’d ever had professionally,” Lehman said. The experience sparked a fire in him, and in 2006 he launched his own business, Cre8Play, to focus on themed playground equipment full-time.
Council grant helps transform a 'contaminated, inefficient' warehouse into an attractive, efficient, environmentally-friendly facility
Cre8play has grown from a one-person shop in 2006 to a fully integrated design-build operation with 25 employees. In 2011, Lehmann consolidated three locations at a newly refurbished former industrial warehouse in New Hope.
Less than six months before the move, that warehouse was “a contaminated, inefficient, underutilized property,” said Scott Tankenhoff, Managing Partner of Hillcrest Development, which specializes in polluted site redevelopment. With the help of a $443,000 grant from the Metropolitan Council’s Livable Communities Act (LCA) program, the lead contamination was removed and the property was transformed into an attractive, functional and healthy workspace.
“We loved being able to start from scratch and design a fun, creative work environment,” Lehman said. Like their products, the facility is environmentally friendly, he explained. For example, no wastewater leaves the shop floor – it is all recycled for reuse in the manufacturing process.
Cre8play is just one of scores of businesses that have found a place to expand and grow, thanks to the cleanup of polluted sites aided by the LCA’s Tax Base Revitalization Account and a partner program at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Including the grants awarded in January 2012, since 1996 the Council has awarded 315 grants totaling $87.7 million to 41 communities in the seven-county metro area. Expected results:
- $5.2 billion in private investment
- $86 million increased tax base
- 1,992 acres cleaned
- 36,852 new & retained jobs