TJX Project Receives $1.4M for Roadwork
LORDSTOWN, Ohio — The Ohio Controlling Board released $1.4 million for road improvements to support the TJX Home Goods Distribution Center in Lordstown.
State Sen. Sean O’Brien, D-32, announced the funding, which was released at the request of the Ohio Development Services Agency. The money will be used to extend and relocate Hallock Young Road, to add turn lanes and signals and improve Ellsworth Bailey Road.
“The release of these funds is a welcome investment in my part of the state and a signal that we are well underway in our long journey to bring over 1,000 new jobs to Lordstown, which has recently been hit hard by job losses in other sectors,” O’Brien said in a release. “I was extremely happy to see this money released yesterday.”
Late last month, TJX announced it had paid $5.9 million for some 290 acres in the village for the project. At the time, Lordstown Mayor Arno Hill projected a ground-breaking by the end of this month.
The distribution center is expected to be up and running by 2020. Employment is projected to reach 600 full-time workers by 2022 and 1,000 by 2024.
Support for the $160 million project has been ongoing since September 2018, when Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Peter Kontos ruled against an injunction that would have blocked development of a 1.2 million square-foot distribution center.
After the deadline to submit additional legal challenges passed the following month, support for the project has included approval by Trumbull County Board of Commissioners of a 10-year, 75% tax abatement on the increased value of the Lordstown site where the warehouse is proposed to be built, a water quality certification issued by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in March, and approval of a capital lease agreement by the Western Reserve Port Authority that will save TJX approximately $3 million in sales taxes.
Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
