The development of the Winchester Industrial Park will be supported by a $4.2 million JobsOhio grant, according to a Thursday news release from Ohio Southeast Economic Development, the Adams County CIC and JobsOhio.
The overall investment includes water, sewer and an access road to the park. Adams County plans to make regional sewer and water upgrades, which will improve the excess capacities at the park. Water capacity will be increased by a 12-inch water main extension along S.R. 32 from the village of Seaman and will be supported by a 200,000 gallon elevated tank.
“To attract more opportunity to Adams County, we and our partners are working on improving site inventory to ensure businesses can easily succeed here,” said J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio president and CEO. “This assistance will support needed infrastructure improvements to the Winchester Industrial Park, making it an ideal location for future investment and job creation.”
A new 700,000 GPD capacity wastewater treatment plant will be built off-site to add capacity to the Winchester’s sewer system as well as supporting the industrial park. The JobsOhio grant will fund extensions of water and sewer to the park boundaries. In addition, new roadwork will be constructed to avoid residential and recreational areas and allow for a safe turn radius for truck traffic.
“This business park’s location allows access to both our region’s labor surplus and the Cincinnati metro area while also being within a federal Opportunity Zone, and I think it has great promise for the future of Adams County,” said OhioSE President Mike Jacoby. “Adams County has been hit very hard economically, and we were pleased to work with Adams County Economic Development and the Adams County CIC to provide vital infrastructure for this industrial park.”
The Winchester Industrial Park is located near SR 32 and the acreage is currently used for agricultural purposes. In 2018, the Adams County CIC purchased 36 acres and in 2019, the Adams County commissioners purchased an additional 19 adjacent acres to form the Winchester Industrial Park. All planned improvements are expected to be complete by end of 2023. The industrial park will be a shovel-ready site with all due diligence studies completed, water, sewer and electric to the site and roadwork in place to serve new tenants.
“The Winchester Industrial Park has been a goal of ours for a long time and we are excited to see this dream become reality. The park is a key asset to bringing business into Adams County,” the Adams County CIC said in a released statement. “In addition to the enterprise zone, the Winchester Industrial Park is located entirely within an Opportunity Zone in Adams County’s northwestern quadrant. Once infrastructure is in place, we are confident this will be a springboard that attracts more development into our community.”
Funding to install infrastructure in the park was made available through the JobsOhio-Ohio Southeast Site Initiative, a program that started in 2018 with the goal of assisting southeastern Ohio counties by creating competitive, development-ready sites capable of winning new business investments. The sites in the program were selected with the assistance of a group of southern Ohio CEOs who advised JobsOhio and Ohio Southeast Economic Development.
Several other sites in southern Ohio also participated in due diligence reviews through the initiative. The reviews include a title review, environmental assessment, wetlands delineations, threatened and endangered species study, cultural resources report, geotechnical report, utility assessment, grading plan, and engineer’s development cost estimate.
INformation for this story was provided by Thomas Crooks, Stonewall Group.
