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Morris
ELKINS -- The Randolph County Commission approved a resolution for the Randolph County Industrial Park Expansion Project Thursday during its regular meeting at the James F. Cain Courthouse Annex.
The request was made so that the Randolph County Development Authority can apply for an Industrial Access Road Grant through the West Virginia Department of Economic Development and the state Division of Highways.
In order for the RCDA to apply for the grant, the Randolph County Commission had to first pass the resolution. Commissioners Chris See and Cris Siler voted unanimously to approve the request. Commissioner David Kesling.
"Each year the state Division of Highways and Department of Economic Development set aside money to be used for the construction or upgrading of roads that lead to eligible properties, mostly industrial properties," said RCDA Executive Director Robbie Morris. "There's no financial obligation for the county commission and these will be unmatched dollars. We have used these funds in the past for the roads leading to AHF Products Flooring Plant."
Previous funding from this particular grant went toward the construction of both the deceleration lane and the traffic light at the AHF plant in Beverly.
Morris said that each county can apply for the max funds of $400,000 and that the county commission is the entity that decides where that money can be applied within the county.
"This doesn't mean we are going to get it, it's just authorizing us to apply for Randolph County's portion for this fiscal year," said Morris. "We are very late in the fiscal year just because of when we bought the property, so if we are unsuccessful in getting some of the last funding available in this year's allocation, we will probably be back sometime in July to request the same resolution so that we can apply for the funding for the fiscal year 2023."
If the Development Authority is awarded the grant, Morris says that the funding will go toward Phase 1 of the Industrial Park expansion.
"With this particular grant the funding will be used for the railroad crossing and connecting the crossing to Riverbend Road," Morris said. "This will be the first phase and then we plan on applying for appropriations next fiscal year as well. If we don't get it this year, we will apply for 2023 and 2024 to upgrade Riverbend Road and all the other things we have to do there."