Adams County gets $740,000 for park expansion and gas station cleanup

Adams County secured $740,000 in state brownfield money that could reshape two very different sites: a deteriorated former school on State Route 41 that sits beside a community park, and the former Stout gas station, where the first step toward reuse is figuring out what contamination remains.

The larger award, $440,000 to the Adams County Land Reutilization Corporation, is aimed at 7517 State Route 41. State project details describe the property as an 8,886-square-foot former school building built in 1947. The work will abate asbestos-containing materials, remove universal waste and demolish the unsafe structure, clearing the way for the township to expand the adjacent park and erase a blighted parcel from the landscape.

The county’s second award, $300,000, will pay for assessment work at the former Stout gas station. That money is meant to determine what contamination is present and what work would be needed before the property can be remediated or reused. Ohio’s abandoned gas station cleanup program is aimed at former gas and service stations with documented petroleum releases, and the applicant or property owner cannot have contributed to the prior release. In practical terms, that assessment will determine whether the site can move from an uncertain parcel into future commercial redevelopment.

Taken together, the two grants show how brownfield money can serve both public use and private investment. One award helps remove a long-vacant building that has outlived its purpose and is now blocking better use of land next to a park. The other gives local officials the technical information needed to decide whether a former gas station can be cleaned up enough to attract new business. In a county where underused properties can sit idle for years, the difference between assessment and cleanup often decides whether a site stays stuck or becomes an asset.

The grants were part of a broader $61 million Ohio announcement on May 14 that covered 75 counties. State officials said $45.8 million went to 84 cleanup and remediation projects and $15.3 million went to 76 assessment projects. The Brownfield Remediation Program, created by the DeWine administration in 2021, has now provided nearly $717 million for 681 projects in 86 counties through 10 rounds, a scale that shows how much of Ohio’s redevelopment strategy now runs through environmental cleanup first.