TRUMBULL COUNTY Officials plan to seek $150,000 for study on indoor racetrack

Also, $400,000 in federal aid could help Kinsman Township's sewer project.
VIENNA -- Trumbull County could be ready to seek federal Economic Development Administration money in January for a more detailed, second study on the viability of an indoor auto racing track.
The Mahoning Valley Motor Speedway project would cost $300 million to build, would initially seat 60,000, and be expandable to 120,000 seats. Brant Motorsports of Wheeling, W.Va., wants the project funded from a mix of private and public sources.
Alan Knapp, Trumbull County Planning Commission director, said he was contacted by a representative of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, about applying for a grant to the Western Reserve Port Authority to help fund the study.
Knapp said his office by mid- to late-January could be ready to seek $150,000 from the EDA for the second-phase study on the speedway project.
Counties' contributions
Trumbull and Mahoning counties would need to contribute 40 percent of the total $250,000 cost of the study.
Knapp said a $100,000 local match could be derived from the port authority, but noted he first has to have more discussions with officials there and in Mahoning County, which has budget concerns for 2005.
The port authority is funded by both counties. But it now receives all of the money generated by Trumbull County's lodging tax.
A provision in the federal five-year EDA reauthorization bill included funding up to $300,000 for the racetrack study. Ryan got the provision into the congressional bill. EDA funding, however, normally is restricted to covering 60 percent of such a study's cost, Knapp noted. That's why a local share is needed.
Ryan has said this would be the world's first indoor racetrack and would mean about 1,300 jobs with an estimated impact of $100 million annually.
A $60,000 study in 2003, funded equally between Mahoning and Trumbull counties, found that the idea had merit, and that a publicly owned racetrack could be profitable, even if it didn't get a big race.
But because of financial challenges facing both counties, plans stalled for the second study. It would provide a more in-depth look at the market conditions and potential for the 40-acre covered racetrack proposed by Brant Motorsports at a spot near Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.
Sewer project
Also to be sought from the EDA next month is about $400,000 toward the $675,000 first phase of a sewer project in Kinsman Township that eventually will total $8 million, Knapp said.
At the center of this project is a former Kraft cottage cheese plant on Burnett-East Road. Its new owners plan to subdivide the factory and rent it to new businesses, a move that officials have said could create hundreds of jobs.
In October, local businessmen Richard Thompson and David French reached an agreement with Kraft to buy the 65,000-square-foot factory and about 140 acres, including a water-well field and state-of-the-art water treatment plant. They plan to give the treatment plant to Trumbull County, where it will be used to anchor new sewer service to Kinsman Center.
A $400,000 grant in that EDA reauthorization bill will be used for work on the treatment plant and to construct sewer lines to serve the area. U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-14th, announced the grant in late October.