WOODSFIELD — The Monroe County Land Bank demolished 12 houses in 2024 and received grant money to do more projects.

The land bank was launched in 2022, Monroe County Treasurer and land bank President Taylor Abbott said. In 2023, the land bank demolished 40 structures, two schools and cleaned up the former Ormet site. Some of the properties included the former Clarington school, former Beallsville school and houses the land bank owned.

The land bank demolished 10 additional properties that wrapped up in April this year.

“It’s been a county-wide focus. We haven’t just focused on one or two towns. We’ve covered all corners and all villages with this program, and that’s what our goal is to continue doing,” Abbott said. “We want to target each area that needs to be addressed. So we’ve been able to do that pretty successfully.”

Last month, Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Development awarded $797,222 in grant funding through the Brownfield Remediation Program to the Monroe County group. The land bank has received $1.3 million in funding in the last two months. The agency also secured $500,000 to demolish at least 35 properties with the goal of receiving more funding money.

A total of $600,000 of the money will go toward demolition and cleanup of the former Woodsfield High School, and $197,222 of it will go toward a Phase II environmental assessment for the former Graysville School. Abbott said that once the assessment results are received, the agency can go back to the state and request the money it needs to remediate any environmental issues with the school and tear it down. Separate funding will be pursued to tear it down. For now, the agency has about $200,000 to do the assessment the state requires.

The land bank’s goal is to demolish the 35 additional structures on the list. Abbott is hoping to receive additional funding to tear down the former Graysville school before the end of 2025.

Abbott said that because DeWine and the Department of Development awarded the land bank nearly $1.3 million in funding over the last two months, it plans to carry out further demolitions of blighted and abandoned structures around Monroe County in 2025 and work toward the 35 demolitions goal.

The land bank has been partnering with Sunday Creek Horizons Consulting, which has been helping it secure applications and make sure it has everything the state requires.

“So that was a new development that we did this year,” Abbott said. “Our land bank board opted to work with them, and they’ve been hugely beneficial to our team.”

Abbott noted the response of the community has been great, with people happy to see these blight structures come down, especially those who were living next to a longstanding dilapidated property.

“In doing so, we’re helping stabilize property values for those and then, in turn, we’re cleaning these properties up,” he said. “They can be sold. New structures can be built on it. Goal being, get them back into tax-paying hands and expand — expand the county’s tax base and new development.”

Abbott added that plenty of projects need to be done in Monroe County, and the land bank is putting funding it’s been granted to good use. He said the agency doesn’t pick and choose what it wants to do with the money, but rather the state tells it what it has to do with the money.

Abbott said his goal for 2025 is to continue what the land bank has been doing, which is tackling problems around the county.

“My goal is to continue showing results so that the public sees that this money is being spent on cleaning up properties around the county,” he said. “We’re putting our best foot forward.”

Abbott added that the county is ripe for development, especially at the former Ormet site. When the state gave the land bank nearly $10 million to do the cleanup there, that was an investment in the future of the county, he said, and he thinks there’s going to be some significant developments happening on that site, which is now home to Long Ridge Energy.

“I’m very proud that the land bank has been able to put investment down there to clean it up and get it ready for future development, because that is our county’s premier site,” he said. “There’s one thing that I’m proud of … the fact that we’re creating a blank slate for a new development to happen in this county down there. In turn, there are more jobs, more tax revenue, people being able to have a career right here in their backyard. And it’s in our county.”

Monroe County was the second highest awarded county in Ohio behind Cuyahoga County. Abbott described the county as a textbook example that no matter how small a county is, it can be successful in putting funding to good use and having the results to prove it.

“For a small county like ours, to receive that level of funding, second only to Cleveland, is a real testament to the work we’re doing here, and the state of Ohio recognizes that and that’s the important thing,” Abbott said. “It is state funding from the state legislature at the direction of the Department of Development, Governor Mike DeWine. When they recognize what we’re doing here, that means a lot for us as a small county.”