While Garuckas didn’t say for which segment of the bike path the money will be for, the portion that the city applied for grant funding is along the Great Miami River, near the former Champion Paper that the rail spur had been built, to transport materials in and out of the paper mill.
The city hopes construction will start on Phase I later this year and possibly be completed this year as well. Phase I is about a half-mile-long piece between Cleveland and Eaton avenues.
“I don’t know when they’ll be able to announce that,” he later told this media outlet, “but there’ll be some good news coming on that pretty soon.”
The Phase I construction has not yet started because with Ohio Department of Natural Resources grant money being used, the city has to use its procedures, which requires additional paperwork and email exchanges.
“Everything’s been slow with the virus,” Garuckas said. “A lot of them are working from home.”
The city last week sent the state the engineering plans and bid package for Phase I.
“It’ll be along the river,” he said. “We’re continuing with what we said we’d do, we’d focus more on the eastern part of it before we really hit up the neighborhood areas,” he said. “It’s not 100 percent finalized yet that we’re getting some dollars, but it’s pretty sure we’re getting it. Just based on how some committees met, and how they scored some things, and what we’ve been informed of.”
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