SALEM, Ohio – A former industrial site in Columbiana County was selected for Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program funding.
The funding was announced Thursday by Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel and Lydia Mihalik, director of the Ohio Department of Development, as part of $60 million in state support to help clean up and redevelop 51 hazardous brownfield sites in 27 counties.
The Columbiana County Land Reutilization Corp. is slated to receive $202,261 for a project at 631 W. State St. The assessment project includes the removal of two underground storage tanks, soil sampling and laboratory analysis.
Bobby Ritchey, land bank liaison, said the funding also will allow the continuous monitoring of the soil to make certain no further contamination exists.
The property is located at the western end of the West State Street overpass bridge and was formerly the Salem Flour Mill in the late 1890s and a gas station around 1949.
The brownfield assessment on the property is part of a larger redevelopment effort involving adjacent parcels, which are on state Routes 14 and 173, near U.S. Route 62. The property also is within proximity of railroad tracks.
Ritchey said the adjacent property belongs to Gano Land Development Inc., and once the property is remediated, it could be enjoined to Gano’s property.
This is the third time Columbiana County has received Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program grant money, according to Tad Herold, director of the Columbiana County Development Department.
The first was a $1.3 million grant, which was used to tear down the former school building on Maryland Avenue in East Liverpool. The second was for a $780,000 project that is about to begin this summer and will clean up below- and above-ground tanks at 448 E. Taggart St., East Palestine.
“We are very appreciative to ODOD for these funds,” Ritchey said, adding Brownfield Remediation money has allowed the land bank to complete projects throughout the county.
Since 2021, the Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program has awarded nearly $717 million for 681 projects in 86 counties across the state, allowing industrial, commercial and brownfield sites previously abandoned to be redeveloped.
“These projects prove that economic growth doesn’t always require starting from scratch,” Tressel said. “By bringing these brownfield sites back to life, we’re taking underused land and turning it into housing, commercial hubs, and job creators capable of changing lives.”
Pictured at top: An aerial view of the site. (Source: Esri, ArcGIS Online, World Imagery [Clarity]; Columbiana County GIS Department; Parcel Dataset, 2022)