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Local infrastructure projects to receive $11 million
YOUNGSTOWN
Thirty-two infrastructure projects in Mahoning and Trumbull counties are set to receive more than $11 million in Ohio Public Works Commission funding next year.
Officials overseeing nearly 50 potential projects drafted proposals which were presented to the District 6 Public Works Integrating Committee, which ranked them according to nearly a dozen factors including the target area’s condition, the amount of local funds committed and the project’s impact.
Seventeen projects, mostly road and wastewater system improvements, didn’t make the cut.
Commission funding available for 2019 projects totals about $8 million in grants and $3 million in loans, said Ed Davis, transportation asset manager for Eastgate Regional Council of Governments. The region’s grant and loan requests totaled about $9.5 million and $2.5 million, respectively.
Davis said project costs are typically “over-programmed” on OPWC applications by design, as final costs shrink once bids come back. Any leftover grant funding for the 2019 cycle goes back into the pot to fund other projects, he said.
“Any project that is over that amount, we put it on what is called our ‘contingency list’ or ‘bubble’ projects. As the money comes back in and projects are finished out, it goes to fund those contingency projects,” Davis said. “If any contingency projects are left over by the start of the next round, they get put on the top of the list.”
The projects’ final applications are due to Eastgate next week for one more round of review before submission. OPWC funding is disbursed July 1, Davis said.
“If they’re ready to go, if they’ve got all their ducks in a row, that can get the money pretty quick,” he said.
Mahoning County applied for nearly $2.5 million for about 25 miles of road and bridge safety updates expected to cost about $3.2 million, a larger project than the county usually brings before the commission, said Patrick Ginnetti, Mahoning County engineer.
The updates affect 10 of the county’s 14 townships, he said, and will hit Southeast River and Ellsworth roads in Milton and Ellsworth; Lipkey Road in Jackson; Four Mile Run Road in Austintown; Spitler Road in Poland; Shields and Tippecanoe roads in Boardman; Raccoon Road in Canfield; 12th Street and sections of Middletown Road in Smith and Goshen; sections of Pine Lake Road in Goshen; a section of Western Reserve Road in Ellsworth and Goshen; and Columbiana Road in Springfield.
The priciest projects in the lineup are a $6.7 million sanitary-sewer project in West Farmington Village, Trumbull County – $5.7 million of which was raised locally – and $5.4 million in safety upgrades and rehabilitation work along Fifth Avenue in Youngstown, $4.6 million of which is local funding.