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Article Originally Published: wtov9.com

by Tyler Madden | Tuesday March 22nd

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Millions of dollars in funds are set to go toward development on the former Weirton Steel mill site.

The money was secured with the help of West Virginia’s congressional delegation.

Developers of the site said they’ve made great progress securing more than $25 million to help further redevelop it.

“They’re taking away the old and now it’s time to build up the new,” Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission Executive Director Mike Paprocki said.

Leaders and developers of the former mill are moving forward with new development on the property purchased by the Frontier Group a number of years ago. That development includes more than $25 million in funds secured by both West Virginia senators – Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito – along with Congressman David McKinley. The money is earmarked to build a roadway through the site and the city’s water infrastructure.

“This is prime industrial development that we’re repurposing,” Paprocki said. “You just don’t see industrial development coming back to the brownfields.”

The road that will serve as a Main Street bypass and industrial access road with $4 million used as way to start the development of a three-lane road that will connect Cove Road through the site and tie into Ohio 7 – something that’s been discussed for years.

“It was a way of getting the trucks off of the Main Street, the downtown area and to also make is safer for pedestrian travel and for the stores,” Paprocki said.

$22 million will go toward water and sewer infrastructure expansions in the city.

“That water project will provide us capacity both water and sewer to handle the new industry that comes here,” Weirton City Manager Mike Adams.

Development on the steel mill site is seen as a positive for everyone in the area.

“It presents a great opportunity,” Adams said. “You’re talking about, not millions, but billions of investment in this area, and when that happens the next thing that comes is jobs.”

The Frontier Group have been in talks with numerous different businesses in a variety of industries about moving to the site.

“These prospects are energy, chemical, value added metals and crypto mining,” said Pat Ford, Frontier Group director of business development.

The investment in the site serving as an incentive for that added development.

“And all of those industries and uses gravitate towards large industrial sites that have a lot of power, access to the river and access to the roads,” Ford said.

Over the next few months, the state’s congressional delegation will be working to get the funds to the city and parties involved to begin the work on the site.