Licking County stories to watch in 2024: Intel Corp., Etna Township, Newark Earthworks
The calendar has changed from 2023 to 2024, but Intel development, road construction, commercial and residential developments, the fight over utilities and the Etna Township trustees will continue making news in the new year.
Some new events expected in 2024 include the transformation of Moundbuilders Country Club into a public park providing continual access to Octagon Earthworks, the reopening of a renovated and restored Arcade in downtown Newark, the completion of the Thornwood Crossing-Thornwood Drive road project and Licking County Transit making regular bus stops at Denison University.
Of course, it’s always possible there could be delays that push some of those anticipated developments into 2025.
Road construction near the site of Intel's computer chip manufacturing plant
One certainty is the Intel development and road construction around the site will continue throughout the year. The city of New Albany continues to make road improvements on Green Chapel Road, Clover Valley Road, Mink Street and Jug Street.
“Now, it looks like a big construction site. In the next year, it will look like a brand-new transformed area,” New Albany City Engineer Ryan Ohly said. “As far as the traveling public, they’ll really see and feel the improvements in 2024. We’ll put final pavement down on all those roads.”
On Green Chapel, traffic has been switched onto the newly constructed southern lanes, and two-way traffic is open from U.S. 62 to Mink Street, according to the city. The lane change allows crews to remove existing pavement and rebuild the northern lanes.
Clover Valley Road north of Green Chapel will not be accessible from Green Chapel during this phase of construction. Clover Valley Road south of Green Chapel will be accessible from Green Chapel. The work is expected to finish in the spring.
Construction is underway for infrastructure improvements surrounding Mink Street, Clover Valley, Jug Street and Harrison Road. The reconstruction of Mink Street from Ohio 161 to Green Chapel Road continues, with completion expected in August.
The project also includes minor reconstruction of Jug Street for several hundred feet east and west of Clover Valley Road and completion of the new 3,300 foot Clover Valley Extension connecting the Jug Street/Clover Valley Road intersection to Mink Street.
Major reconstruction of Clover Valley Road will occur between Jug Street and Miller Road, and minor reconstruction of Haul Road will create a four-way intersection with Clover Valley Road.
A water storage tank will be erected along Clover Valley Road across from the Intel site and put into service in 2025, Ohly said.
Road construction elsewhere in Licking County
The $15 million Thornwood Crossing-Thornwood Drive project includes a new road, a new bridge, and a new roundabout, bypassing the crumbling Showman Arch Bridge on Cherry Valley Road, which reopened in April with a temporary fix ending a seven-month closure.
The project will connect Thornwood Crossing to Thornwood Drive, with both roads connecting with Reddington and River roads at the new roundabout, possibly opening in November.
The city’s next sewer separation project, following the downtown and Fourth Street projects in recent years, will be on South Second Street, from just north of the railroad bridge to the South Fork Licking River. The project begins in the first quarter of the year and finish in 2026.
The $25 million South Second Street interceptor sewer project will include a relocation of Ohio Street at South Second. A fork in the new road will connect to the Mound City Little League entrance and to the existing Ohio Street leading to Little Texas.
The city may also decide to extend the improvements on National Drive between South Second Street and South Fourth Street.
The West Church Street bridge over Raccoon Creek, just west of the Buckeye Valley Family YMCA, will close Jan. 15 for six months for a $4 million replacement project. The sidewalk alongside the roadway has been deteriorating for years.
Horns Hill, Waterworks and Cedar Run roads will connect with a new single-lane roundabout. Construction on the $1.5 million project will take about three months.
The Licking County Transportation Improvement District will not be ready to begin construction on Intel-area roadways in 2024 but will continue work on Refugee Road with partners Etna Township and Pataskala.
The project widens Refugee Road to three lanes from Mink Street to Etna Parkway with roundabouts at each intersection. The pavement, including the surface course on the Mink Street roundabout, has been completed.
Substantial completion of the project, including the Etna Parkway roundabout, will be completed by July 1, with a final completion date of Dec. 1.
Licking County Transit adding route to Denison; potential Newark Earthworks site changes; Arcade reopening downtown
Not all the news in 2024 will be on Licking County roadways. In fact, one service could reduce traffic on the roadways.
A third Licking County Transit deviated, fixed bus route will start making regular, scheduled trips later this year from Newark into Granville and Denison University.
The new route expands on the service which began with a Main Street route in Newark in July, followed by a north Newark route starting in October.
This could be the year for a transition from golf at Moundbuilders Country Club to a public park providing access to the Octagon Mounds, part of a the the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks World Heritage site in Newark, Heath, Chillicothe and Warren County.
A jury trial still must determine how much the Ohio History Connection must pay Moundbuilders Country Club to buy out the lease of the golf course so it has full control of the Newark Earthworks.
The trial was scheduled to begin in October in Licking County Common Pleas Judge David Branstool's courtroom, but it was postponed after Moundbuilders Country Club attorneys appealed to the 5th District Court of Appeals, challenging Branstool's pretrial rulings on who can provide testimony at the trial.
The Arcade in downtown Newark, one of eight glass-roofed shopping arcades built in Ohio from 1876 to 1928, will reopen late in the year, renovated and restored after years of work and a cost of $20 million.
Newark Development Partners, a public-private community improvement organization that owns the Arcade, bought the 70,000 square-foot building in 2019 after a decade of fire code violations, fire watches, floods caused by sprinkler lines freezing and water main breaks and structural deterioration.
The Arcade opened with retail stores, housing and entertainment in 1909. It once housed more than 30 stores, featured an orchestra playing over the Fourth Street entrance, with dances every night and children playing around a fountain. A theater was added, and the once T-shaped building extended all the way to West Main Street.
There were about two dozen commercial spaces inside The Arcade and 15 to 20 residential units above the mall area when NDP took ownership. They all left three or four years ago, and it's been vacant ever since as demolition and renovation continued.
When it reopens, The Arcade will have up to 24 commercial spaces, 19 loft apartments, an event space and possibly a farmer's market during the winter months. Tenants will likely include a bar, a restaurant and possibly a hairdresser, clothing store, boutique and ice cream parlor.
Future of water and sewer service in Johnstown, Alexandria, Granville and elsewhere
The future of water and sewer service in central Licking County was a top story in 2023, and it looks like that will be the case again in 2024.
Representatives for the townships of St. Albans, Liberty, Monroe and Granville, the city of Johnstown and villages of Alexandria and Granville are continuing to pursue a regional partnership for water and sewer service to ensure they have a say in future development.
Granville Village Manager Herb Koehler said the townships are all reviewing the most current version of the agreements. If all the townships and municipalities are amenable to the language, Koehler said the agreements could be approved by each entity's council or board in the first quarter of the year.
Last year the Southwest Licking Community Water and Sewer District purchased nearly 100 acres in St. Albans Township for $4.6 million. District board member Trent Stepp said the district has hired an engineering firm to design a wastewater treatment plant for the site, a process that will likely take more than a year.
Construction is already underway on the district's new $85 million wastewater treatment center in Etna Township, Stepp said. He added that's expected to take 24-26 months.
The district has more than a dozen projects underway, and Stepp said one of the most important is the installation of sanitary sewer lines along Etna Parkway in the city of Pataskala, which is scheduled to be complete this year.
"That's going to open up the Pataskala Corporate Park for development that's not really been possible before," Stepp said.
And as more development of all types continues throughout the county, the Licking County Soil & Water Conservation District is stepping up its work in 2024 to safeguard natural resources.
Kristy Hawthorne, district program administrator for the conservation district, said one of the agency's top goals for 2024 is to benchmark data about water quality.
The district has partnered with the United States Geological Survey to do monthly testing on Raccoon Creek between Alexandria and Granville. They'll be testing for nitrates, phosphates, sediment, temperature and pH — all the usual suspect when it comes to water testing, Hawthorne said.
The district will also test for an additive to asphalt, which was prompted by the possibility of two asphalt plants coming to Alexandria, Hawthorne said. Although the Licking County Planning Commission rejected an appeal by Shelly Materials and Scioto Materials to develop concrete- and asphalt-mixing facilities in the area, Hawthorne said the district wants data of the waterway now in case they do even up being installed.
But the data will also be critical as more lanes are added to roadways and acres of asphalt parking lots are paved at Intel and other sites.
"Prior to that major development, we now have the data of what the current status of the waterway is," she said.
Etna Township Trustees try to move on after years of infighting
Infighting has dominated the Etna Township Board of Trustees for two years, but that could change this year with a new member.
Gary Burkholder joined the board after his November election, and was selected as the board president in the first meeting of the year on Jan. 2.
Burkholder said he aims to bring civility back to the board that he sits on with fellow trustees Mark Evans and Rozland McKee. The two trustees have often disagreed on topics ranging from whether the township should be an exclusionary zone for solar farms to township hall décor.
"I want to give them the flexibility to express how they feel on an issue and everything but it's got to be focused on the issue and not necessarily the past," Burkholder said.
740-973-4539
Twitter: @kmallett1958
mdevito@gannett.com
740-607-2175
Twitter: @MariaDeVito13
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Intel, Newark Earthworks among Licking County stories to watch in 2024
