Zanesville Secures Funding for Lear Site Clean-Up

ZANESVILLE, OH – A major boost for development in Muskingum County is on the way.

The Muskingum County Land Reutilization Corporation and the City of Zanesville have secured over $2.6 million to finish the clean up the Lear site property. The funding comes from the State of Ohio’s Brownfield Remediation Program.

“The total project cost right now is $3.624 million. Of that, just a little bit under a million the city’s already spent on cleaning up the site. Additional environmental reports that they’ve prepared some planning that they’ve done on the site and then remediating the asbestos that was part of the demolition debris that was on the site,” Executive Director of the Land Bank Andy Roberts said.

While the exact plans for the property are not yet confirmed, the hope is to prepare about 20 acres on the southern side for recreational use and redevelop the northern 8 to 9 acres for residential and commercial purposes.

“Right now, there are limited amounts of parks on that side of the river. 20 acres of pure recreational ground will be a benefit to all the joining areas in the community and large. It’ll also take this blight that has existed on our community for a couple decades and get rid of it. Hopefully that’ll spur further investment in the surrounding residential and commercial,” Roberts said.

The clean-up of the property could take up to two years.