McConnelsville Celebrates More Than $13 Million Grants for Village Projects

MCCONNELSVILLE, Ohio – Governor Mike DeWine visited McConnelsville on Tuesday to celebrate more than $13 million in state grants to revitalize their downtown area.

The first of these projects was funded by the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization Program (AMBLER). $3 million from this program will fund renovations to the Twin City Opera House which has been open since 1892.

“The AMBLER grant that we are going to be implementing soon will be used to address handicapped accessibility, and accessibility to the third floor which is a ballroom now. We’re hoping that we can get access to that to allow the village to have the ability to have court there and some other things that they need to do upstairs,” said Adam Shriver, the executive director for Twin City Opera House Inc. “And then for the opera house, incorporated to have ground floor access on the first floor so that we can expand our lobby and the economic impact that we can have on the downtown.”

The other $10.3 million is from DeWine’s Wonderful Waterways Initiative and will add new lighting for the sidewalks of the village square, install a roundabout to replace the dangerous six-stop intersection, and create a new riverfront park along the Muskingum River.

“This gives us, each community, more of an opportunity to enjoy the river. Sometimes we don’t utilize the river as much as we could and I’m always drawn to water. I think many, many people are,” DeWine said. “[We] want to go down either, you know, canoe or kayak or just walk along the river. And so, a lot of the money that we put out, the communities have decided they really want to focus on the river and opening up that, many times, accessibility from downtown to the river. From the community to the river and opening that up. We’ve done it, you know, all over the state. ”

The new riverfront park will feature a performance area, gazebo, pavilion, walking trails, and access to the river for boats and kayaks.