(The Center Square) – Ohio continues to pour taxpayer dollars into demolishing buildings and cleaning up brownfields across the state.
More than $55 million will go to communities throughout Ohio in the seventh round of funding through the Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program and Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program. Both programs were established to create room for new economic opportunities in areas that currently cannot be developed.
Overall, more than $510 million has been given to 489 projects in 85 counties through the remediation program since 2021. The demolition program has handed out more than $303 million to all 88 counties.
The current brownfield grants total $22.7 million to clean up and redevelop 27 hazardous brownfield sites in 19 counties, including $2.4 million to redevelop a longtime manufacturing site in Fulton County into a mixed-use development with commercial and residential spaces.
The new demolition grants total $33.2 million to demolish 1,091 vacant, dilapidated buildings in 65 counties. The projects include the razing of the long-vacant former Dillard’s department store at Midway Mall in Elyria and a series of demolitions along East Sixth, West Fifth and River Street in Franklin that will play a role in revitalizing its historic downtown.
As part of the Demolition and Site Revitalization Program, $500,000 was set aside for all 88 counties and the program’s remaining funds were awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. Sixty-one of the recent awards represent the total amount requested by each county up to its $500,000.
