A facility improvement project at the Norma Johnson Center can now move forward.
Tuscarawas County is getting a quarter-million dollars from Ohio’s one-time strategic investment fund to rehabilitate the center’s iconic red barn.
Parks director Jesse Rothacher says that’s on top of the 350-thousand dollars in American Rescue Plan money the county commissioners had already contributed to the effort.
“The costs for the red barn are a little higher than what we were initially awarded and a lot of that is simply its 99 feet long. There’s a lot of material.”
Federal money the county received during the covid-19 pandemic is also being used to turn the centers Brandywine building into a new headquarters for the park department and educational space, since they currently work out of the courthouse complex.
He says the move will give them more storage space, decrease response times, and make the operation more efficient.
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