PHOTO BY JOHN FRYMAN / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
REVIEW … Williams County Port Authority board members, Joe Kimball (front) and Bill Martin (back) review the agenda of the Monday, January 26 regular board meeting.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
The Williams County Port Authority heard an update on the senior housing project in Bryan at its regular meeting on Monday, January 26.
Board members in attendance were Dawn Fitzcharles, Bill Martin, Tyler Sailer, Tyson Stuckey, Ashley Epling, Joe Kimball, Cheryl Andres, Sean Rupp and Dave Newcomer. Rachel Walz was absent but participated via a Zoom call.
Fitzcharles reported on the senior citizen housing project involving the construction of a 50-unit complex for a total cost of $13.9 million. The project is located on South Portland Street.
She, along with Martin and Kimball, who are also on the senior housing project committee, has been working with the developer to move the project forward.
“We’re working on putting the final pieces of the puzzle together, and we’re still hopeful that we will be able to close and break ground, hopefully on June 1,” said Fitzcharles.
She commented that there was a gap when they had originally submitted the project to the Ohio Housing Financing Agency.
“The Port Authority for the submission had agreed to local support of contributing $258,000 towards the 50-unit complex,” said Fitzcharles.
The board considered and approved a formal funding request to the Bryan Area Foundation, which would partially fund the grant for the project. The BAF will provide $100,000 towards the grant, with the port authority paying the remainder of it.
Martin will be preparing an application for the Bryan Area Foundation for additional funding. The board held a discussion of collaboration with the Williams County Land Bank for the purpose of maintaining lot inventory.
“We have adopted a policy where we wanted to maintain an inventory with ten lots,” said Newcomer.
“Part of that is we want to reach out to the Land Bank, trying to coordinate with them so they can help us maintain inventory of lots that needed to be filled out.”
The board also approved its own governance roles for 2026, which also included committee designations.
Among the committee designations are finance, the senior housing project, the Greenfield subdivision project, and the supervision of maintaining contractor relationships through building development.
Consideration was made to adjust the regular meeting schedule. The monthly regular board meetings will now be held on the fourth Monday of each month, starting at noon. Emergency meetings will be held as needed.
The board went into an executive session for the purpose of considering the purchase of real property.
Following the executive session, a motion was made to approve the purchase agreement for the Greenfield subdivision property and financing options for other properties for 2026.