FINDLAY, Ohio — The next round of riverside improvements in Findlay are right around the bend.
What was once a block of businesses on Main Street in Findlay is now a large, empty green space. Hancock County has been buying flood-prone properties and demolishing them to make way for flood mitigation work.
Next up is a former industrial building vacant for years, now down to just a foundation.
And instead of using their mitigation funding already set aside, the County commissioner will be using a brown field grant from the Ohio Department of Development to not only clean up the rubble, but remove any contaminated soil.
"We applied hoping that we'd get some money to remediate the brown field and save that flood mitigation money for further work on our projects here in Hancock County," Hancock County commissioner Michael Pepple said.
Once the foundation is gone, the16-acre stretch of riverbank will be the second phase of benching to limit flooding elsewhere in the city.
Mayor Christina Muryn toured the site Tuesday with the Strand and Associates engineering firm to see what could become of the space once the benching is complete.
"We do have a lot of flexibility because of the tiered system of the benching area to still have some paths throughout the space, a playground, potentially some event space," Muryn said.
The second round of benching is expected to lower the 100-year flood level by another six inches, which would make investing in the business and residential parcels in this immediate area much easier.
"Once we can take care of this and get the FEMA flood maps redrawn and pull them out of the 100-year flood area, then all of a sudden we've got the opportunity for redevelopment," said Tim Mayle, Findlay-Hancock County Economic Development director.
If the former industrial site is cleaned up and remediated fast enough, ground could be broken for the Phase II benching project by the end of the year.
But Mayor Muryn says that will more than likely happen in the spring of 2023.