City council passed a resolution allowing Mayor Bob Cleary to seek a grant to develop the city’s marina and recreational facility.

Thursday, March 29, 2001

City council passed a resolution allowing Mayor Bob Cleary to seek a grant to develop the city’s marina and recreational facility.

The ordinance gave the mayor the go-ahead to seek a Waterways Safety Fund Grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources-Division of Watercraft that will provide funding for the first phase of a three-phase project that will develop the Storms Creek marina.

Cleary said the total cost of the project will be over $1 million so the city has broken the project into three phases.

The first phase will be to dredge the waterway to make the channel deeper and to add some docking. He said this part of the project is estimated to cost around $300,000.

The second phase of the project will be to develop more docking, construct restroom facilities and to develop access roads to the site.

The final phase of construction will develop parking, camp sites, picnic areas, other recreational areas and complete the docks.

The city applied for the same grant last year but was denied funding. City Engineer Joe McCallister speculates the grant was denied because the project was funded by grant money in the previous year.

McCallister said the grant will be submitted to the state agency and added it will be sometime this summer before the city learns if the grant is approved. If the state grants the funding, work on the first phase is expected to begin next spring.