by Isabella Carwile | Dec 11, 2024 | Business Expansion, Community, Events, Jobs, PCED Office, Property Development, Workforce
Paulding County Economic Development Press Release
PAULDING– The Paulding County Economic Development (PCED) office hosted the fourth quarter Business Advisory Council (BAC) Committee meeting this week. The meeting was held in the newly remodeled OSU Extension building on the campus of the Paulding County Fairgrounds.
Twenty-one business leaders and educators introduced themselves so participants understood where and how each attendee fits into Paulding County’s growth. The event was moderated by PCED Director Tim Copsey. Copsey shared how the council is stronger with participation and how it can benefit school, student, and business relationships around the county, for the future.
Guests heard a summary of recent BAC Steering Committee activity. The committee meets quarterly for months just prior to full council meetings. This committee digs deeper into the details of how to develop collaboration between businesses and educators and helps guide future development within the BAC. For the 2024-25 school year BAC template submission to the Ohio Education Association, 28 programs were identified and reported that were taking place between businesses and educators in the county. This committee is now reviewing each of these programs individually to see if they remain viable, are relevant to business today, and if we can emulate them at other schools or businesses within the county. The review will continue throughout the year.
As they started out in the past, this group was mentored by other high-performing BAC groups around the state. The Ottawa County BAC has offered an invite for the Paulding County members to join in one of their upcoming meetings to see how they run their BAC and if anything could be learned for the future. The group will look at the date and see if there might be an opportunity to participate in a collaborative meeting soon.
Discussion also took place regarding connecting with last year’s high school graduates. It would be of interest to the BAC to be able to share open employment opportunities, from around the county, with graduates and with current college students. This would allow students to see employment opportunities, within their field of study, as they determine their employment future.
One highlighted area, for possible improvement from the committee, is with the OhioMeansJobs employment portal. It was noted that this seems cumbersome for students. A meeting has been scheduled to see if there may be an opportunity to walk through this portal with students and OMJ state leadership to see how training may help, or if there needs to be some tweaking to the portal itself. Results will be shared with the committee at a future meeting.
All three county high schools addressed the group sharing new and exciting things taking place with each of them. Superintendent Rick Turner shared updates from Vantage Career Center and Northwest State Community College Van Wert campus Dean of Students Jon Tomlinson shared information in regard to the college.
Copsey closed out the meeting sharing information about potential opportunities that have taken place in other nearby counties that the BAC should consider. This included a business breakfast at Patrick Henry High School and an elementary business expo at Holgate Elementary. Also shared were dates of April 2 for the Paulding County Business, College, and Career Showcase and June 2-5 & 9 for the 2025 Paulding County Teacher Bootcamp. The boot camp is provided by the State of Ohio to offer local high school administrators and educators the opportunity go out to tour and meet local business professionals while receiving continuing college credit.
The PC BAC will convene again in February with a Steering Committee meeting and a full membership meeting in March
by Isabella Carwile | Nov 19, 2024 | Business Expansion, Community, Jobs, Paulding County Business Weekly Radio Broadcast, Property Development, Workforce
Listen this week to the Paulding County Business Weekly podcast, where we hear from Solid Ground owner Brian Shuherk, who shares about the Solid Ground business and all the exciting benefits that they can provide. Irrigation, landscaping, landscape drawings, and snow removal just to name a few. Brian shares how this business started in the trunk of a car and has developed into a regional service business. Thank you to program sponsor, OhioMeansJobs. You can tune in on Tuesdays & Thursdays at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., or Click Here to Listen Online! Paulding County Business Weekly is also available in podcast form through Apple, Google & Spotify. #pauldingcountystrong
by Isabella Carwile | Sep 11, 2024 | Business Expansion, Community, For Sale, Property Development
Paulding County Economic Development Press Release September 11, 2024
PAULDING – The Paulding County Land Reutilization Committee held their monthly meeting at the Paulding County Commissioners office on September 11 and opened the meeting with a moment of silence.
Matt Wagner, with the county EPA consulting firm Tetra Tech was asked to first give updates on brownfield projects around the county. Wagner was very happy to announce that the former Liberty Fuel gas station property, located at 504 E. River Street in Antwerp, has received the final approval and clean bill of health. Tetra Tech has applied to the State of Ohio for the “No Further Action” letter for the property.
The former Grizzley Brake factory property, located at 710 W. Caroline Street in Paulding, has had the entire perimeter fence repaired and foliage has been mowed back about 40 feet within the fence perimeter. This allows the discussion to move forward with the current site owner, Cummins, and the county land bank committee for further remediation. There was no update in regard to the former Stokely factory site across the road from Grizzley.
The Land Bank has acquired the empty Patriot Rail mill building, located in Antwerp at 103 Cleveland Street. This will allow the building to be removed in the brownfield remediation program. The Paulding Village owned Winkle building, located at 105 N. Main Street in Paulding is scheduled to have asbestos remediation.
All brownfield and residential/commercial site remediation projects are on hold until the Ohio Department of Development issues approvals in regard to the applications submitted in late 2023 and early 2024. The hope is that news will be shared by the end of September so projects can begin to move forward.
The committee was given a brief update by Estee Blair about the 37 projects she has held up as she also waits on approvals from the Ohio Department of Development.
The discussion then turned to current owned properties and what the future plan for them might be. There will be signage put on the former theatre lot to indicate an intent to sell. There are four residential properties located in Scott, Ohio. At this time the committee agreed to hold on to them as they determine if grant funding might be available through the Welcome Home Ohio grant for help in making these available for future growth in the community.
There are four additional properties around the county waiting on various pieces of legal legislation or approvals for them to move forward with remediation. The committee did go into executive session to discuss the potential purchase of another property with no action taken following. The committee will meet again on October 9 in the commissioner chambers.
by Isabella Carwile | Jul 25, 2024 | Business Expansion, Community, New Business, Property Development, Shoutout
PAULDING, OH – Okuley’s Pharmacy, located in Continental and Defiance, Ohio, is excited to announce the opening of a new location. Okuley’s Pharmacy – Paulding will be located at 829 North Williams Street (former Fastenal location next to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles).
“This is an exciting announcement for Paulding County,” stated Paulding County Economic Development (PCED) Director Tim Copsey. “It was heart wrenching when the announcement came from Rite Aid that our very well supported store was on the closure list. We immediately started making connections to take action. We met with the Paulding County Hospital Administrative Board the very next morning and made a plan to reach out to the Antwerp Pharmacy and Okuley’s. Both will benefit from the Rite Aid closure. We can’t thank the Okuley’s enough for choosing to open this new location in Paulding.”
There were many partners that took quick action to make this new location come to fruition. Okuley’s, the Paulding County Hospital, DLM Realty, and even the Ohio Department of Liquor all responded and acted quickly to the contact and efforts the PCED office made to make this a smooth transition.
“We are still several weeks away from the storefront opening but at least our county residents have the opportunity to again pick up their medications locally. The liquor store will move to a separate location but that is secondary to getting the necessary medications locally. Our office will focus more on that now that Okuley’s is established,” Copsey closed.
“Okuley’s are excited to add the Paulding community to our locations. Our team is looking forward to serving the community with prescription and medical equipment needs. There are many moving parts to making this happen. We are all going to work hard to get up and running as soon as possible to help eliminate stress for the patients. We thank everyone in advance for your patience as we put all the pieces together” commented Kieu and Travis Okuley.
Patients that would like to pick up medications locally can immediately begin to transfer their medications to the Okuley’s Pharmacy Continental, Ohio location, located at 102 South Main Street. Prescriptions will be filled and can then be picked up in Paulding at the 829 N. Williams Street location Monday thru Friday from 3-6pm.
Once the Paulding building remodel is complete, all licenses obtained, and contracts are in place, the Paulding store will be open to the public. The goal is to open sometime in September. Watch the Okuley’s Pharmacy Facebook page or the website www.okuleypharmacy.com for updates.
For help transferring your medications or if there are any questions you can contact the Continental Okuley’s Pharmacy at 419-596-3898 or fax 419-596-3909. All attempts will be made to make this transition as seamless as possible.
by Isabella Carwile | Jun 12, 2024 | Business Expansion, Community, PCED Office, Property Development
Paulding County Economic Development Press Release – June 12th, 2024
PAULDING – The Paulding County Land Reutilization Committee met in June to share information and receive updates about many completing and some new projects.
Several positive comments have been expressed to the committee in regard to a site recently remediated in the Village of Payne. The property, located just on the south edge of the village along Highway 49 at the Flat Rock Creek bridge, was purchased by the Land Bank committee last winter. The committee was able to contract with Dangler Excavating and had several old semi-trailers, a structure and some other trash removed prior to grading and seeding the lot. The noticeably clean property was then sold to the commercial building owner next door.
Paulding County Treasurer, and Land Bank Committee President Lou Ann Wannemacher, shared that the Land Bank has finalized purchase of the trailer court located at 802 N. Main Street in Paulding. The purchase from S&N Partnership,LLC will allow for some very aged mobile homes to be removed and remediation of the property to make room for future development. This trailer court had a fire last winter in which three residents lost their lives.
Another property purchase that has local attention is the former Faith Alive Church building located at 220 N. Williams Street in Paulding. This building will be removed to make way for the new Paulding Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial. There has been much inquiry about some of the stain glass windows, pews and other memorabilia inside the building. The committee is working with local auctioneer Larry Gorrell to have an online auction in the future for purchase of the items. More information will be shared about the auction dates as this project develops.
Matt Wagner, with EPA consultant Tetra Tech, shared information about the final clean-up procedures at the former Liberty Fuel Station, that was located in front of the former Varner’s Trailer Court on the east side of Antwerp. A final soil test is being procured. A low contamination reading will allow the sale of the property. Wagner also reported the Stokely and Grizzley remediation projects are still on hold awaiting Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) approvals of the remediation application.
Turning to residential and commercial building blight, Estee Blair, local land bank consultant with Maumee Valley Planning Organization, asked the committee for review and approval of a grading template that would provide her office a systematic process to determine awarded demolition contractors for future projects. Following questions and discussion, the committee approved the template as presented. Blair also noted that there still has been no response to the 47 projects submitted to ODOD for Paulding County remediation.
In final discussion of the full agenda meeting, the Land Bank committee had the opportunity to acquire two parcels in the unincorporated Village of Mandale, located in the county’s southeast corner. The parcels were not purchased in a recent foreclosure auction. The committee agreed to accept the parcels to try and remediate them and contribute to a positive change in the area.
by Office Manager | May 16, 2024 | PCED Office, Property Development
PAULDING COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PRESS RELEASE 5 16 2024
PAULDING – The Paulding County Economic Development office recently hosted several development roundtable discussions. Businesses owners, employees and individual members of the Paulding County Economic Development office were invited to attend from three sectors: finance, construction/development and realty. The intent of the roundtables was to organize an internal county team that is interested in developing residential opportunities in Paulding County.
The first roundtable discussion was with the financial group. Banking and credit union leaders, from seven financial institutions around the region, met to hear about project opportunities, potential properties available through private and land bank property options, and learned about different State of Ohio residential grant programs taking place. The group also shared information including: subdivision development, current lending, interest rates, modular home financing and an upcoming Vibrant Communities Grant seminar. The seminar will be held at the Paulding Eagles from 2:30-4:00 pm on Thursday, May 23. The seminar is open to the public but the currently the only eligible communities for the grant are the villages of Antwerp, Broughton, Cecil, Grover Hill, Haviland, Melrose, Oakwood & Payne.
The next roundtable group was the construction/contractors group. This group included 13 businessmen whose expertise ranged anywhere from building inspection to foundation development, framing, drywall work and HVAC installation, to roofing, siding and finishing. This group was the most vocal as new introductions were made, new homebuilding myths were busted and new ideas were shared. The connections made in this meeting were certainly worthwhile and are already enticing new development project discussions.
The final group to meet was the realty teams. Nine realtors, representing six regional realty groups joined Megan Foos with Northwest Ohio REALTORS.
Interestingly enough, these local teams confirmed much of the same that is being discussed in villages and counties throughout Ohio, that there needs to be more housing. There is interest to build, there is equity to be spent on speculative builds, there just isn’t enough road, water, sewer, surface drainage infrastructure in place for building of single family, multi family or senior living complexes to begin. The group provided thoughts on how we might overcome this barrier and how we need to work in conjunction with grants and other funding to make this work.
Tim Copsey, Director for Paulding County Economic Development office summarized, “We have been hearing from so many different business, individuals and entities involved with all of these sectors. We just felt the best way to include our current and potential investment members in the conversation, and get them a seat at the development table, was to pull them all together in these roundtable meetings. Once everyone was introduced in their respective groups the discussion took off just as we hoped. These were definitely worth our organizations time and investment. We are excited to share what came out of these roundtable meetings and discussions.”
To learn more about commercial, retail and residential projects developing in Paulding County please contact Paulding County Economic Development at 419-399-8282.
