Mayor provides megasite project update

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Van Wert Mayor Don Farmer provided an update Thursday afternoon on a conference call held the first of the month to discuss funding for the 1,600-acre Job Ready Site northeast of the city. The mayor gave details of the hour-long call, which included city officials, City Council members, a representative of Dominion Gas and Ohio Department of Development officials, and also told of his hopes that approval will be given to postpone installation of a natural gas line to the site.

Mayor Farmer first gave a brief overview of the project, going back to the signing of the original agreement September 30, 2009. At that time, the U.S. Economic Development Administration office in Chicago had indicated that a $2.5 million federal grant was likely for the project — something that evaporated following a change in administration of the Chicago office.

Loss of that grant forced city development officials to contemplate changes to the project to make it financially feasible, since a $5 million grant from the ODOD was the only other governmental funding for the nearly $10 million project. “That put us in the position of ‘do we need a gas line run into the megasite prior to an end user?’” the mayor said.

Mayor Farmer noted that the February 1 conference call was set up to address that question, adding that, while no final answer has yet been given by the state, the discussion is still underway.

“Our next steps are to develop, and agree upon, budget amendments that all parties can agree upon and support, such that the site can achieve certification through the Job Ready Sites program,” the mayor said.

Losing the $2.5 million federal grant was a big blow to the project at the time, the mayor said. “That (the grant) was looked upon as almost guaranteed to us, at one point,” he noted, adding that the loss of the EDA grant “late in the game” put local officials on the hook for nearly $5 million of the project cost.

Postponing installation of the natural gas line would lower the cost to approximately $7 million, which would also lower the contribution needed from local sources.

To accomplish this, the original agreement must be amended to reflect removal of the gas line from the up-front project costs. However, Mayor Farmer stressed that changes at the state level don’t happen overnight. City officials plan to meet with representatives of Dominion Gas and the ODOD to come up with updated figures on the project that can be then used to amend the grant agreement.

“We need to gather information and have a face-to-face conversation with the people who are really making the decisions at the State of Ohio,” Mayor Farmer said. “If that means taking it all the way up the chain (of command) to our governor, then that’s where we need to go.”

The mayor said he couldn’t give a timeline on when that would happen, but a new agreement would likely need to be approved relatively soon if the project is to be bid out and construction begun this spring.

Mayor Farmer said a meeting is planned with Dominion Gas officials next week.