Commissioners Receive Update on New Downtown Facility

The Muskingum County Commissioners were given an update Monday afternoon on the proposed southeastern Ohio Cultural Facility in downtown Zanesville. It would be built next to the current Welcome Center.

The 41,000 square foot project would be a venue for regional and local events, including trade shows, conventions, and entertainment.

"We have an influx of people who come and stay in our hotels, they come and spend money with our restaurants, with our retailers, they fill their gas tanks with us right here in Zanesville and Muskingum County, all of that is cyclical," said Vicki Maple with the Muskingum County Convention Facility Authority.

 Maple along with others from the Convention Facilities Authority asked the commissioners Monday to appoint a task force that would help oversee and provide ideas and input on the development of the facility. But the task force would just be one component of an already well established group aiming to make the project a success.

"But we also have a design team, a finance team, a grant writing team, bonding team, legal teams, this takes a lot of expertise, a lot of behind the scenes efforts in order to collect all of this data," said Maple.

The Convention Facilities Authority will also be at Monday’s city council meeting asking the city to put together a task force that would do the same thing as the county’s task force which would float 1.3 million dollars in bonds for construction beginning within the next year or two. The center is estimated to generate 180 jobs and 15 million dollars in economic activity for the region.