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Committee hangs hope on road data

STEUBENVILLE — The Columbus-to-Pittsburgh Corridor Committee hopes to ride again on new data that should suggest a four-lane alternative to Interstate 70 is now feasible, thanks to increased traffic into the state’s Utica Shale corridor.

Jim Emmerling, a member of the Jefferson County Port Authority board, said at the port board meeting Friday he’s working on a public relations campaign aimed at getting the attention of state and federal officials to do another feasibility study on the project.

A group of officials and business people along the corridor met for several years before having their hopes dashed by a study released seven years ago that claimed traffic, safety and economic concerns didn’t support the investment in the road network at that time.

The toughest piece at the time was a 20-plus mile link across Harrison County to connect with the four-lane U.S. Route 36, linking it to U.S. Route 22 near Cadiz. Other major pieces of the highway network are four lanes already, including parts of state Routes 161 and 16 and parts of U.S. Routes 36 and 250, as well as Route 22.

Emmerling said in total, about 47 miles of the highway network need to be completed.

“That 47 miles could change the landscape between Pittsburgh and Columbus dramatically,” he said.

Emmerling said to anticipate an announcement within the next month of the revival of the highway effort, which is now being led by Ed Looman, a project manager for the Appalachian Partnership for Economic Growth. Looman had been involved in the corridor committee prior to the 2011 study as head of Progress Alliance, a public-private economic development group in Jefferson County that was superseded by the port authority.

“The economic change just in the last two years alone is phenomenal,” Emmerling said.

He said I-70 can’t handle the traffic load now and, with changes from the oil and gas industry, especially if the ethane cracker proposed in Belmont County is built, it will only get worse.

Emmerling said traffic doesn’t want to go north or south first before heading west.

Emmerling’s EM-Media will be putting together presentations funded through four of the counties along the corridor to spur new interest in the highway proposal and, hopefully, to get the story advanced to the federal level this time.

“The last time, we never had a good story. But I’ve been compiling data on economic development and growth from the seven counties along the corridor and the story has changed. Oil and gas has changed the story,” Emmerling said.

In other matters, the port authority is waiting for a visit Monday by representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to give clearance to a wetland area in the county industrial park to be handled by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in the future. The county is hoping to be cleared to complete a 26-acre development site in the industrial park. Brandon Andresen of the Jefferson County Soil and Water Conservation District, said if cleared, the current study of the wetlands on the site will be good for five years, meaning any changes in the site during that time won’t require a new study to be done.

Evan Scurti, port authority executive director, said there is a prospect interested in a warehouse-office project with 10 jobs studying a location and there are preliminary discussions under way with a Pennsylvania firm looking for a foothold in the Eastern Ohio area.

“Folks are looking at us as a potential growth area. They are looking at an office location here with or without the cracker decision that we have been hearing about,” he said.

Scurti also is planning a summer marketing event for Pittsburgh real estate and development professionals to visit the area.

He said he’ll be submitting a grant application next week to develop additional parking for the county-owned Towers office building on Market Street.

He said three brownfield studies have been completed under a grant fund, including one for the River Rail site south of state Route 7 in Steubenville, and there is a request for an asbestos study at a place “on a key development corridor” in the city.

He has been working with owners of abandoned gas station sites to take advantage of a $20 million fund the state has for reclaiming the sites. One site in Steubenville has preliminary work done hopefully leading to eventual removal of underground storage tanks, with another in preliminary discussions. Scurti said if the projects are qualified by the state, the port authority could be used as the grant pass-through to pay for the tank removals using the state grants.

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