By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
The Ohio Department of Transportation has purchased 40 acres north of Bowling Green with plans to build some type of “multi-use facility” there.
The Wood County real estate transfers for May 12 showed that ODOT paid $880,000 for the property located on Ohio 582, east of Ohio 25, in Middleton Township. The cost of an average acre of farmland in Wood County is between $6,500 and $7,000. ODOT paid $22,000 per acre.
Theresa Pollick, spokesperson for the ODOT District 2 Office in Bowling Green, said the agency is “looking into the possibility of a multi-use facility” being developed there sometime over the next 10 years.
One of those uses could be a highway maintenance facility, Pollick said. When asked if ODOT is looking to move its offices from Bowling Green to the new site, Pollick just repeated that the acreage will be used for a multi-use facility.
The newly purchased property, located on the north side of Route 582, is directly east of the Northwestern Water and Sewer District facility. The acreage, which is currently zoned agricultural, has easy access to Interstate 75 a couple miles to the east.
ODOT is in the middle of major construction projects on I-75, including widening the highway to three lanes through Wood County.
ODOT District 2 currently has two facilities in Bowling Green, with its offices at 317 E. Poe Road, and a maintenance facility on the west edge of the city at 13982 Mitchell Road.
