BRACEVILLE Planners seek taxes for hotel venture

Other businesses in the area would like to connect to a sewer line.
WARREN -- The Trumbull County Planning Commission is proposing that real property taxes from a planned Holiday Inn Express in Braceville Township be used to pay for road and sewer projects to help it and other businesses in the immediate area of the Ohio Turnpike-state Route 5 interchange.
County commissioners will conduct a hearing March 27 to consider using 60 percent of the real property tax paid by the hotel, being developed by Raxit Shah's Liberty Newton Falls Inc., to make payments on a $225,000 bond issue for 10 years.
The property tax money would normally be split between the LaBrae Local Board of Education, Braceville Township and Trumbull County.
Road work: Floating the $225,000 bond would raise money to modify the eastbound turnpike exit ramp so traffic comes to a complete stop at state Route 5, and also add a deceleration lane for traffic turning into the hotel lot.
Ohio Department of Transportation required that traffic be reconfigured at the interchange as a condition of putting in the new hotel's driveway, said Alan Knapp, planning commission assistant director.
The $225,000 bond would also pay to extend a sewer line under state Route 5, bringing it within a few hundred yards of two existing hotels and a truck stop.
"They can extend it themselves," Knapp said. "If they want help from the county, they may have to wait a while."
OEPA order: The businesses, Alri Truck Stop, Budget Lodge and Roadway Inn, are all under order from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to hook up to sanitary sewers, he said.
This is just the latest incentive to help Shah build the Holiday Inn Express. Sewer lines were extended to the area from Newton Falls at a cost of $420,000, using Community Development Block Grant and Issue II funds on top of $51,000 contributed from the hotel.
The county also lent the developer $50,000 at 6 percent interest for 10 years to build a private drive to the hotel. Officials had earlier discussed building a public access road, but the narrowness of the property made that impractical, Knapp said.
In a presentation to the county commissioners last week, planning commission director Gary Newbrough said that the interchange is poised for development.
Comparison: He compared the area with the Interstate 80-Salt Springs Road interchange in Weathersfield Township, where truck stops and numerous businesses have blossomed in the past 10 years.
"This is really our opportunity to get people off the turnpike and get them to see Trumbull County," Knapp said.