Pair of HDM buildings receive funding for architectural work
American Hall was one of two Historic Downtown Millersburg buildings to receive CDBG grant funding for architectural repair work.
The Holmes County Commissioners were busy taking care of potential upcoming construction projects in the county during their June 30 meeting in the Old Jail in Millersburg.
The commissioners first authorized a resolution to execute the documents involved with the USDA Application.
Commissioner Dave Hall said this resolution pertained to Holmes County engineer Chris Young going after USDA grant dollars to help fund the construction of the new engineer’s building east of Millersburg.
“It’s just stating that we are interested, to see if they can obligate and what kind of funds can they give us at the federal level,” Hall said. “It’s preliminary. We are just starting the process, and we can get out of it any time. We just want to see what kind of deal we can get through the federal government.”
An agreement also was passed by the commissioners authorizing architectural services from DS2 for the American Hall for windows and the former DeWitt’s Drug Store building for a roof and HVAC for a total of $36,000. Both buildings reside in Historic Downtown Millersburg.
An Ohio Department of Development Community Development Block Grant of $200,000 was secured for the projects.
Holmes County Planning Commissioner Arnold Oliver said these funds and the work on these projects has been a long time coming, having experienced long delays in the process.
He said Dylan Kaufman, owner of the American Hall building, has been waiting for more than two years to complete this project in restoring the historic HDM building.
“This is the first step,” Oliver said. “We struggled to get an architect on board and finally got one in DS2 Architects in Hillsboro, Ohio. They agreed to do the design work for $36,000, which is within the budget of the grant, and that allows us to march forward.”
Oliver said the overall grant for the DeWitt’s Drug Store project, which is owned by Jim and Traci VanKeuren, is $66,000. The American Hall project total grant projection is for $100,000.
“The DeWitt Drug Store building was in really rough shape, but they’ve done a lot of work in it,” Oliver said of the VanKeurens. “The roof in particular was in really bad shape.”
Oliver said the American Hall work has been painstaking because Kaufman has to adhere to a specific set of details because of the historic nature of the building.
“The windows have to be wooden and have to fit the character of the building, and they are super-picky,” Oliver said.
He said with those funds in place, it will leave just under $40,000 left from the original grant, funds he said the county will simply leave uncommitted should construction run over the estimated costs.
He said if that doesn’t happen, he can apply those state funds to another project.
The commissioners also passed a proclamation honoring the 2025 Division VI state baseball champion Hiland Hawks coaching staff and players. The proclamation honored 26 total team members who captured the program’s third straight state title, a feat accomplished only twice prior to this.
Attending the meeting were head coach Chris Dages and All-Ohioans Caden and Colin Coblentz.
“Everyone I’ve talked to said you really represented us well,” Commissioner Dave Hall said to the trio.
Dages praised his players for their desire to continue a tradition of winning baseball.
“These guys had a lot of experience going into this year,” Dages said. “They had a lot of success, and this senior group wanted to set themselves apart from the past couple of years and get one on their own terms, and they did. They worked hard from the end of the previous season until our championship game. They were working hard to get that third championship.”
Dages went on to talk about the team’s fortitude and work ethic, saying this group never backed away from a challenge, nor did they shrink in the face of adversity.
“It was kind of crazy going there three times; it just doesn’t happen,” Colin Coblentz said. “It was fun, and having good seniors before us to teach us how to go about it and do it well, good leaders and good teammates, it was a lot of fun.”