New car wash planned on Possum Run Road
The Richland County commissioners have approved the annexation into the City of Mansfield of a one-acre parcel of land on the east side of Possum Run Road across from the Washington Township Hall for a new business that could be up and running sometime next year. The request was made by current owners David and Darlene Smith, who are hoping to sell the property as the site for a planned car wash.
Trent Walter, a managing member of Ohio Car Wash Holdings of Mansfield, told the board the company is hoping to build a two-bay automatic car wash with three vacuum units on the site.
“This would be similar to the one in Ontario by Steve’s Dakota Grill where you pull in, you stop, and it goes around the car,” he explained.
Walter said the company bought the unit next to Steve’s in 2019. It built the Buckeye Express Car Wash on Lexington-Springmill Road in Ontario in 2016 and is building a similar conveyor type car wash on Stewart Road in the Kroger parking lot, which is expected to be completed around Thanksgiving.
Once the annexation and purchase are approved, Walter said the next step would be to negotiate with Walmart and CREA, which owns the adjoining out lots, for easements for utilities and ingress and egress.
“We don’t see a problem with Walmart because they have car washes at other locations,” he added.
Reese Mills, who represents the Smiths, said the annexation is an expedited request that does not need public hearings and that the next step is approval by Mansfield City Council. The process calls for a 60-day waiting period before council can act and another 30 days for the annexation to take effect.
Walter said construction would take four to five months using local contractors.
“That is an area that is growing with a potential big development in the works,” said Commissioner Tony Vero. “There’s a request from the federal government to allow some additional work out there to further expand economic development.”
Vero did not elaborate on his comment.
Commissioners appropriate additional funds for elections board
In the only other major piece of business Thursday, commissioners certified and appropriated $178,298 in state funds to pay for election expenses for the May primary and August special elections. Richland County Board of Elections Director Matt Finfgeld said the money is part of a $284,031 grant from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office that covered salaries, supplies, postage, printing, training expenses and contract services for polling places for the two elections.
“We’re just asking to certify the $178,298 where the appropriate line items were spent from to get through the rest of the year, the reason being, obviously, because we didn’t fold into the budget for 2022 to have a third election in August and there also were some issues with the May election as you are all aware of,” Finfgeld explained. He added that the office returned $105,732 of the grant that was not spent.
Finfgeld said that while he does not anticipate spending all of that money through the end of the year, no one knows what the next two weeks will bring. He pointed out that that 10,000 absentee ballots already are in the mail or received in the elections office, adding that the figure is updated daily on the board of elections website.
Finfgeld also reminded voters that the office will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday next week, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Nov. 5, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 6 and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Nov. 7 for early voting.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Commissioners OK annexation for new car wash on Possum Run Road
