Business View Civil & Municipal | July 2022

5 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7 O p e n i n g L i n e s OPPORTUNITY APPALACHIA ANNOUNCES 10 SELECTED PROJECTS I O pportunity Appalachia and State Lead for Ohio, Ohio Southeast Economic Development (OhioSE), recently announced the selection of 34 projects to participate in a program to bring jobs, business support, and investment to Central Appalachia. The selected projects propose to create over 1,700 jobs and attract over $177 million in financing to develop manufacturing facilities; downtown development; community centers; health, wellness, and childcare centers; food and agricultural facilities; hotels; and retail enterprises in downtown and rural areas across Central Appalachia. Opportunity Appalachia received 75 applications for technical assistance from across Central Appalachia (Southeast Ohio, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Southwest Virginia, and West Virginia), representing projects with anticipated costs over $369 million and requested TA worth more than $3.7 million. From this project pool, 34 projects have been selected for participation. Opportunity Appalachia will now provide technical assistance to selected projects to support the development of investment prospectus, structuring of project financing, market research, operations planning, architectural design, and investor outreach. Once project technical assistance is completed, a highly visible Investor convening event will be held in early 2023 that will target both local and pre-vetted national investors, as well as federal and state funders. The program is supported AERIAL VIEW OF SHAWNEE, OHIO BY PHIL EICH