Archived Story
Clean Ohio funds help pave way
Published 9:38am Tuesday, June 26, 2012It is official: The site of a longtime eyesore along U.S. 52 near Coal Grove is now ready to again be a key developable piece of land.
More than six years after the project at the former Carlyle Tile site began the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has officially said the property is cleaned up and ready to build on.
This is positive news because riverfront property with strong rail and highway access is an extremely valuable commodity. This 33-acre site could one day be home to industrial — or even commercial — businesses that could create many jobs for our region.
The plant manufactured bricks or tile on the site from the late 1800s through the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, a coal-loading facility was located on a portion of the property, followed by an asphalt plant for a few years.
McGinnis, Inc., the owner of the property, has looked at a variety of options over the years. Hopefully this will allow some sort of project to move forward that will create jobs, inject life into the economy yet still create an aesthetic entrance to Lawrence County.
Anyone who doubts the value of the state’s Clean Ohio program only needs to look at old photographs of what the site looked like before and compare that with what it looks now. This is money well spent.
It is ironic that getting this former brick manufacturing site positioned for redevelopment should pave the way for it to be a strong building block for Lawrence County’s future.
If the IT thumbs back through their files when the grant funds were initially awarded for this project, they would find a BIG PLAN for future use by the property owner, yet, in the more recent articles, it seems no one has any idea what to use the ‘cleaned-up’ property for.
When applying for Clean Ohio funds, a REDEVELOPMENT PLAN SHOULD BE IN PLACE OR NO ONE SHOULD BE APPLYING FOR FUNDS. COMPANIES THAT RECEIVE CLEAN OHIO MONEY FOR A CLEAN-UP AND DO NOT FOLLOW THRU WITH REDEVELOPMENT, SHOULD HAVE TO RETURN THE MONEY TO THE CLEAN OHIO FUND FOR FUTURE USE BY SOMEONE WHO WILL FOLLOW THRU WITH THEIR REDEVELOPMENT PLAN.
THIS PROJECT SO FAR HAS BEEN A WASTE OF MONEY.
IT SEEMS TO ME IN SOME CASES, LOCAL OFFICIALS ARE APPROVING THESE GRANT APPLICATIONS FOR THEIR OLD BUDDIES TO GET THEIR PROPERTY CLEANED UP WITH NO REAL EXITING PLANS TO REDEVELOP. THIS COULD SEVERELY DAMAGE LAWRENCE COUNTY’S SUCCESS IN OBTAINING FUTURE FUNDS.
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