Another spurt of development coming to I-71/Ohio 97 interchange

BELLVILLE – – The I-71/Ohio 97 interchange brought jobs to southern Richland County over the past few decades, as hotels, restaurant and a golf course were constructed, primarily on the “Bellville” side of the interchange.

But business owners say development west of Interstate 71 – the “Lexington” side – is poised to add even more employment in that area, including jobs in a sector that didn’t have much presence in the Bellville area – health care.

Love’s Travel Stop and Country Stores has been working with Bellville on plans to build a large fuel stop and tire center with two fast-food restaurants.

And Avita Health System announced it will build an outpatient clinic with two or three doctors plus support staff on 1.7 acres of donated land just west of the interstate.

That will expand the number of businesses on the west side of the interstate near the Wendy’s restaurant.

Prior to the recession, the number of jobs in Bellville (including the village itself and the interstate area) grew from 604 in 2002 to 823 by 2006, according to the Census Bureau. The federal agency’s most recent figures, from 2014, put the number of jobs at 739.

However, the Census Bureau maps now show that “job density” in the the area close to the interchange, on the east side of I-71, has increased to 309 to 545 jobs per square mile – equivalent to the most job-dense portions of the village itself.

But it has taken more than four decades.

I-71, known in the early years as the “North-South Freeway,” first opened in the late 1950s, along stretches between Medina and Mount Gilead.

Local residents say development at the interchange was limited to a few businesses for quite a while, including a Texaco and a Howard Johnson’s café that later became a Dinner Bell Restaurant.

Development came in a flurry, with stops and starts.

Valley View Development broke ground for the Comfort Inn motel, with 100 units, in 1989, and two other businesses, the Dug-Out Tavern and McDonald’s, announced plans to build.

Comfort Inn/Quality Inn owner Jim Haring had a reservoir built.

Though the interchange was 3 miles from Bellville, the village purchased the reservoir and could provide water to commercial entities. In 1995, the village annexed 445 acres near the interchange from Washington Township.

Comfort Inn owner Jim Haring opened a second hotel, the Quality Inn, in 2004.

Steve Haring, general manager for both hotels, said it made sense to build the Quality Inn, with 66 rooms, across Ohio 97 from the Comfort Inn, with 100. “The Comfort Inn was here, and it was a very busy hotel,” with traffic volume on I-71 “every year becoming a little busier,” he said. “We felt that more hotel rooms were justified – and that if we didn’t build, another hotel would.”

He remembers a flurry of development around that period. “The Der Dutchman went in about the same time as this hotel (Quality Inn),” he said. “The golf course came in shortly after, as well as the Burger King.”

In 2005, the same year a Wal-Mart was approved at U.S. 71/Ohio 13, the next interchange north, a group of commercial landowners told Richland County commissioners they believed the I-71/97 interchange had huge potential for development, with the widening of I-71 to six lanes. Rumors swirled that Cabela’s might be looking at building an outdoor mega-retail store there.

But they were warned by County Commissioner Tim Wert that zoning, limited to food and lodging, was too restrictive.

“Water and sewer was the catalyst to get it (development) started. Everybody thought it would really take off,” Mayor Darrell Banks said. “We didn’t have anything concrete. We had a few property owners out there who thought things were going to break loose.”

But after 2007, with the recession, “when the economy went down the tubes, none of these things happened,” he said.

Business owners say zoning changes – along the current project to widen Ohio 97 near the interchange, adding a turn lane to make safer an area with a high number of collisions – helped foster the two upcoming development projects.

“Prior to a couple of years ago, nothing could go out there except for restaurants, hotels and has stations, with some restrictions,” Banks said.

Bellville approved adding light industry, retail and specifically health care offices to the permitted uses for B3-zoned land developed in the area, he said.

Bellville officials and the Richland County Regional Planning Commission got ODOT to agreed to expand the widening project for a longer distance on Ohio 97.

The construction project, which includes work to straighten out Kocheiser Road (set at a sharp angle as it approached Ohio 97), got underway this summer. The $2.8 million improvements project is underway, with the vilalge contributing only about $15,000, “very little” of the total cost, Banks said.

Haring said while he’s not sure what impact of new development on the Lexington side of the interchange will be, Avita’s medical offices may bring some additional bookings.

“We will probably get some overnight stays from doctors working at that facility,” he said.

Love’s truck stop also could draw travelers off the highway,” Haring said.

“Any time travelers come off the highway and stop for a meal, some will decide ‘You know what? I’m too tired to move on,” he said.

“The more businesses we can attract to an interchange, the better,” Haring said, adding the more choices travelers have for restaurants, the likelier it is they will stop at the Ohio 97 exit.

Keith Wright, who with a partner bought Deer Ridge Golf Club in 2003, said additions of a medical office and truck stop may not directly impact the number of people out on the golf course.

“But it certainly can’t hurt” the restaurant portion of the business, he said.

Wright believes the net effect a decade of more from now from the widening of Ohio 97 “will help us with development.”

When one business commits to an interchange, others “will follow,” he said.

lmartz@gannett.com

419-521-7229

Twitter: @MNJmartz