SHENANGO RIVER LAKE Developer pulls out of recreation project

Two new potential developers have surfaced, and the corps is hoping to hear from them early next year.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
CLARK, Pa. -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plan to develop the former Shenango Valley YMCA campground on Shenango River Lake has hit another snag.
The developer expected to be picked for the job has pulled out of the project.
The 43-acre site, on the southern edge of the lake just east of state Route 18, has been vacant since the corps refused to renew the YMCA's lease on the property for the year 2000.
The corps has since gone through two rounds of trying to find a developer and thought it had succeeded with the second try.
Complete facility: The corps wants to see the land developed as a full recreational facility, complete with overnight lodging and sports programs beyond just water-related activities.
Although there was a fair amount of interest the first time the corps sent out requests for proposals in 2000 seeking someone to build a lodge-type facility on the spot, not a single development plan was presented.
That forced the federal agency to take another look at what it was proposing, and the decision was made to relax the criteria, settling for a less structured type of overnight accommodation, such as cabins, and to put out a new request for proposals this year, advertising over a broader area.
Corps officials were excited when they got a development plan in late July but declined to offer any specifics of the plan or to identify the prospective developer until a contract was awarded.
There will be no contract, spokesman Bill Wilson said last week.
The developer, citing a financial inability to handle the project, has backed out, he said.
However, the corps hasn't had to go back to square one again.
Others emerge: Two other potential developers have surfaced, the Gateway Group of Cleveland (which helped develop Jacobs Field and other sports venues) and Mark Kasiorik, identified by Wilson only as the owner of a business in the area.
Neither Gateway nor Kasiorik was involved in either of the corps' two public requests for proposals. Their interest has surfaced recently and the agency is hoping to get project proposals from one or both of them by early 2002, Wilson said.
The YMCA had the campground for 30 years but never had the money needed to develop it into a full recreational facility.
Instead it basically remained as a primitive campground, although the YMCA did run some programs there.
A market study done by the corps in 1999 showed potential for a full-scale recreational operation and the agency decided to seek out development proposals.
One of the drawbacks, the corps acknowledged, is that it won't sell the land and that may have discouraged some developers reluctant to put money into site improvements on land they could never own.
The corps is only willing to lease the land for a 25-year period with the possibility of extensions for up to an additional 25 years.