Shale turns county seat into LISBOOM

July 2, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Lisbon

Mobile Shoe Truck

Cobbler's Corner in Columbiana takes their wares to the customer with a mobile shoe truck that caters to workers in the Shale industry.

A hotel, restaurant, and mobile shoe store have become front and center to economic growth spurred by Utica Shale.

This little intersection at Ohio 11 and Ohio 154 just outside of Lisbon has become ground zero for a number of shale workers in Columbiana County.

Since buying the Days Inn four years ago when it was known as the Salem Inn, Michal Naffah has watched business increase five times. About half the increase was due to various segments of the oil and gas industry.

The parking lot is mostly full every evening with trucks with logos from oil and gas companies, many of the vehicles have license plates from other states.

“I had no idea what was coming,” Naffah said. “The only thing we knew was about a coal gasification plant that never came through.”

The Shale Tavern and Grille opened sixth months ago to serve the guests of the hotel, but it also has become popular with drivers going to the drilling sites and the community in general, Naffah said.

The original plan had been to sell the restaurant, he said. Those plans changed as more people started filling the hotel and there was a need for a restaurant to serve them. Naffah said his wife picked the new name.

Additional customers should come to the hotel and tavern during the construction and opening of the plant Chesapeake plans to build in Hanoverton, he said.

“There will be architects, engineers — it will take a lot of people to build the plant,” Naffah said.

The hope is the hotel gets to the point where it averages between 95 percent and 100 percent occupancy, he said. Typically, 80 percent to 85 percent occupancy rate is good.

Naffah said he recently attended a meeting where a representative from the oil and gas industry compared the current situation to “the top of the first inning in a baseball game.”

Hotel owners have been told not to build any new hotels specifically for oil and gas workers because the window will simply be too short, he said. The increased business in hotels is expected to last two to four years.

It’s not simply the owners who have benefitted from the increased business from oil and gas workers, Naffah said.

When his company purchased the hotel, it had five or six employees. Now the hotel and restaurant has provided jobs to about 70 people, with 45 at the restaurant and 25 at the hotel, he said. The hotel and tavern have a partner in serving the oil and gas workers.

Each Tuesday around 3 p.m., Ron Houston, corporate sales manager for Cobblers Corner in Columbiana, pulls his mobile Red Wing Shoe Store into the parking lot at the Day Inn and Shale Tavern.

The centralized location helps all the business in the area to serve the shale workers, Houston said.

“It’s a good setup,” Houston said. “We’re doing this one day a week. We’ll add other days if there’s a demand for it.”

There had been a lot of oil and gas workers who had been coming to the Columbiana store. The mobile location was a way to make things easier for the workers, he said. The mobile store carries several different types of safety shoes and boots to meet the needs of various jobs.

Trucks begin to come to the mobile store about 4 p.m., but the busiest time is between 5 and 7 p.m. The workers at that point have had time to get food and get back to the hotel, Houston said.

“Businesses have been serving the workers, but I’m sure there are other things that could be done,” he said.

These workers need clothing and other safety items and have to look around to figure out where to get them, Houston said.

There are chances for other companies to get involved with the oil and gas workers, Naffah said.

These are workers who spend a lot of time on the job, make good money and do not necessarily want to travel far to buy the items they need, he said. Many of them start work around 5 a.m. and then get back to the hotel after a shift of 12 hours or longer.

For most of the businesses in Columbiana County, it is simply too early to take advantage of business opportunities that will arise through oil and gas drilling, said Marilyn McCullough, executive director of the Lisbon Area Chamber of Commerce.

The hotel, restaurant and shoe store have been the early adapters along with some of the restaurants near the courthouse in Lisbon, she said.

Those restaurants near the courthouse have benefitted from the landmen, who have been in the Columbiana County Recorders Office for months looking through records.

“We’ve been told by the oil and gas people we’re still about six months before it really hits,” McCullough said. “They’ve told us to not have new businesses open up too early because they won’t make it.”

When things pick up more, Lisbon is going to be a hub because of where the work is occurring within Columbiana County, she said.

“We’re trying to make sure all our businesses are ready. It’s a very impatient time, but we can’t do anything about it yet,” McCullough said.