Roseville Officials Invest $7M to Revive Village, Offer New Business Opportunities

New grocery store and restaurant will soon be ready,
officials looking for someone to take over these businesses

ROSEVILLE – Nearly a decade of grant-funded projects are transforming the village of Roseville.

Few will have the impact of a the new supermarket building. “It will be the centerpiece of a new downtown,” said Heidi Milner, the village’s fiscal officer.

It is nearing completion on part of the former Ungemach Pottery site on Potters Lane. Construction was funded by $750,000 in grants, the bulk of which was a USDA Rural Development Grant, and local investment. The new building features a grocery store, restaurant space and a walk-up window that could be used for ice cream orders. Garage doors on each side of the dining area will give it a pleasant summer atmosphere, as will a patio behind the building that opens facing the levy.

The village has not had a grocery store since Baker’s IGA closed in 2007.

Officials are looking for someone to lease the building and operate the store and restaurant. That individual or individuals will be responsible for about $250,000 worth of equipment to get the store up and running, Milner said.

“The village doesn’t want to be a landlord,” Milner said, “our goal is to set up the right conditions for business to start and prosper with the intentions to sell the property and building in order to move onto the next economic development phase.”

The village also received an energy efficiency grant from AEP for the new supermarket, which is one more step the village took to make the building an attractive place to start a business. “You have to think of everything,” Milner said.

A loan for $262,216 from People’s State Bank for the grocery store will be paid by the revenue received from the lease of the property, she said.

Access to the grocery store will via new a road, Grand Street. Two abandoned houses will be removed to make way for a boulevard-like street that will connect Main Street and Potters Lane. The new road will have parking and benches on both sides. This project will be paid for by a number of grants and loans; $30,000 from the Zanesville-Muskingum County Coalition for the environmental portion of the project, including asbestos remediation; $2,500 from the Muskingum County Community Foundation to purchase the property; $238,000 from the Governor’s Office of Appalachia; and more grants are pending. The village matched $2,000 and took a State Infrastructure Bank loan from the Ohio Department of Transportation for $173,363.

The Grand Road is expected to cost $583,850, and the access road portion will soon be put out to bid, with expected completion in the summer.

Next door to the new supermarket is another building owned by the village, a 7,000-square-foot structure that used to be part of the Ungemach property as well. The village put a new roof on the building and cleaned it to get it ready for a new tenant.

The entire parcel, now split in two, was purchased at a sheriff’s sale for $1,500. It has now led to more than $1.5 million in investment, Milner said.

Between a villagewide paving project and new sidewalks downtown, Main Street has a new feel. Roseville Village Park will have a new feel too, after the demolition and remediation of a former gas station near the park entrance made space for a large parking lot, and it made the park visible from Zanesville Road.

The village just received a grant through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to convert the tennis court into three basketball courts and to upgrade the restrooms at the Village Park.

“One grant is already awarded so we are just looking for the match funding to complete,” said Milner. The bathrooms will be refurbished to be handicapped accessible and heated to allow for year-round use. The park is in use yearround now,  Milner said, since the addition of a walking trail.

A new sign built with funding from the Perry County Health Department will welcome visitors to the park as well.

Less glamorous, or even visible, are another pair of projects that will save the village money and make it safer.

With the village about to connect to the Muskingum County Water Department system, the village water department will install new water meters. Some of the meters serving customers are 30 years old. Between the age of the meters and leaking service lines Milner said the department estimates a water loss of more than 30%. “That’s like going months without billing someone,” she said. Some customers may see their bills go up, but they will also be getting a better assessment of how much water they actually use.”

Overall, the new water meter project is expected to cost $806,391.The village’s water plant will be paid off in July, and that debt payment already built into the village’s budget will be reallocated to this project. Because of the timing of the project and the retirement of the water plant debt, the village will not have to raise water rates. A loan with the Ohio EPA will make the project possible.

All told, the village has received $6.8 million in grants, and spent $1.8 million between cash matches and loans. Only one loan, a $400,000 project to replace and expand the village’s storm sewer system, resulted in new fees for residents, Milner said. Residents will pay $2.50 per month to cover debt charges for the project.

The process of improving the village began with the construction of a skate park in 2016. Discussion about the park began in 2013, and Milner applied for a dozen grants to find funding for the project. The community raised $13,000 to complete it.

“People told us ‘you can’t do that,'” Milner said of the early efforts to put a skate park in. “But you can, it can be done, we have proven it.”

A community survey revealed what village residents wanted to see built or improved, and now, Milner said, it is nearing time for another survey as nearly every project on that early list has been or is nearing completion. A new survey in the spring will help chart the course for the next phase of improvements in the village.

And, she said, there are more businesses that want to come to Roseville than properties for them to occupy. This includes a business that wants to relocate from Zanesville, and three looking to start up. All would like to have buildings to move into. The village owns a few buildings, but none are quite ready for occupancy, and they still aren’t enough to fill the demand, Milner said. The village is working on getting a brownfield site next to the grocery store cleaned up, and also owns the former Baker’s IGA building. But even then, Milner said, there isn’t enough space.

“We are also trying to work with private owners that have properties that would be good for commercial use,” she said. “This would create a triple win for the business, Roseville, and the owner of the property.”

On top of these new businesses, the village is still trying to help with the construction of a laundry mat and expansion of Ross-Frash Funeral Home, Milner said. The projects were halted because the funding, though Target of Opportunity Grants, was taken to fund the CARES Act.

Projects that were recently finished, or will be finished soon

Projected costs and the various projects completed or nearing completion between 2019 and early 2021 include:

• Downtown Sidewalks: $1,122,595
• Ungemach Pottery Clean Up: $240,000
• West  Athens Road Bridge: $1,147,339
• Villagewide Street Paving: $ 1,295,045
• Abandoned Gas Station Clean Up: $250,000
• Grocery Store: $754,400
• Access Road and Potters Lane Widening: $551,350
• Environmental for Access Road and Asbestos Abatement: $30,000
• Ungemach Building Construction: $82,500
• Storm Drain Replacement/Addition: $400,000
• Water Meter Replacement: $806,391
• Park Restroom Upgrade: $52,800
• Tennis Court Conversion to 3 Basketball Courts: $62,500
• Total: $6,794,920

For more information on village projects, call the village at 740-697-7323.