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.
by Isabella Carwile | Apr 19, 2024 | Community, Property Development
PAULDING – The John Paulding VFW Post #587 has announced a new veterans memorial that will be established in the village. The monument will face the corner of US127 and Caroline Street and is designed to honor all veterans and branches of the military. The main monument is the centerpiece of the memorial that features three towering granite pillars and a life size bronze eagle. There will be six granite memorials honoring the service branches of the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Space Force. It will then have two additional memorials honoring Gold Star Families and Combat Wounded Veterans, along with a bronze battle cross memorial and three commercial grade flagpoles holding the flag of the United States of America, the Ohio State flag, and the Prisoner of War flag.
The memorial will be built at 220 N. Williams Street, facing northeast, so it will be viewed by passing cars going south on US127. This is the current site of the former Church of Christ and more recently Faith Alive Church building.
The Paulding VFW team has invested extensive time in sharing insight and aesthetic goals for the monument, working with Homier Monumental in Defiance, Ohio, in designing a plan that was recently revealed to the public.
VFW Post #587 Commander John Daeger stated, “Our post members wanted to give the Paulding community a memorial that would provide suitable recognition of their citizens who served in the military. The proposal, provided by Homier’s Monumental, exceeded everyone’s expectations. Upon our first review, we were awestruck. It took a while for us to fully absorb all the unique features of the veterans memorial. Once completed, the memorial will be a prominent feature of downtown Paulding and something for our future generations to respect and cherish.”
The site of the memorial was made in part by many collaborative discussions prior to the VFW team involvement. Paulding County Economic Development Director Tim Copsey shared, “The PCED office was tasked with trying to find a building for a new church organization that has grown in the Paulding village some time ago. We talked with the owner of this church building and scheduled some walk though visits. We brought in church members and then contractors to see what it would take to rehab the structure to a clean and safe environment. The deeper we looked the more we found that needed to be remediated, to the point that no one could afford the purchase and investment and still see a return on investment.”
The largest remediation issues, pointed out by two different contractors, included: roof, ceiling, HVAC, and lead paint issues, in addition to a heavy black mold presence in the basement area. It was at this point ownership was interested in working with the Paulding County Land Reutilization Corporation (Land Bank) to see what options were available.
“Once it was agreed there was not going to be an investment into the building, and the Land Bank was asked to get involved. They provided the necessary funding for the demolition and removal of the church structure. However, the Land Bank was not interested in taking on this project just to tear down a building and have another empty lot in town. The Land Bank wanted to have a purposeful and positive end use for this site. The timing of the VFW team asking about available sites in the village could not have come at a better time.” Copsey continued.
The Paulding VFW team had been working on their own for quite some time discussing different options and sizes for memorials. The catch continually seemed to be where the memorial(s) would be located. A casual inquiry from Jon Snodgrass with Copsey, and a follow up conversation by VFW committee member John Daeger led to final discussion about the pending opportunity to place the memorial on this site.
Daeger shared, “In the initial stages of our project, our post members spent hours searching Paulding for locations for the veteran’s memorial without success. Just when we were about ready to terminate the project, we were contacted by Tim Copsey who inquired if we would be interested in the church property. It only took us a couple heartbeats to respond yes, and to request additional information. Since our first meeting with the Land Bank, Paulding County Area Foundation (PCAF) and the Paulding Fraternal Order of Eagles, the VFW has been totally overwhelmed by the level of support and interest of everyone we spoke with. What started as a dream, has now turned into something that is very achievable.”
There are many incredible individuals and various entities working toward the end goal of a meaningful and beautiful memorial. Included in that is the Village of Paulding. Through initial design drawings and revisions, the village has been instrumental in discussing pieces of sidewalk development and potential upgrade of the adjoining city owned parking lot to the south of this site.
“The Village of Paulding is very excited about the new Veterans Memorial. We believe it’s a wonderful project that will honor those who have served our country worldwide, and also in remembrance of those who lost their lives fighting for our freedom.” Commented Village of Paulding Mayor Greg White.
Fundraising for the project has already begun. In yet further collaboration, the Paulding Fraternal Order of Eagles has made a significant initial donation to kick off the $250,000+ fundraising needed for the project. PCAF will be the fundraising collection point for the project. There are many achievable levels of donation including “in-kind” donations. If you would like to make a monetary donation you can send them to PCAF at 101 E. Perry Street Paulding Attn: Cardinal Park Veterans Memorial. For additional questions or involvement contact John Daeger.
