Central District Receives $1.2 Million Grant

LIMA—Allen County is on a good streak in terms of economic development.

Site Selection magazine recently ranked Lima third Top Metro nationally in 2021 for registered projects and second Top Metro per capita.

Eligible projects must have a capital investment of $1 million or more, add at least 20,000 square feet of space, or create 20 or more jobs. Allen Economic Development has submitted projects totaling over $90 million in capital investment, which has retained 1,900 jobs, created 195 jobs and created over 100,000 square feet of space.

And, the streak continued on Friday when the Central District received a $1.2 million grant from JobsOhio. JobsOhio Chairman and CEO JP Nauseff believes the city’s successes will continue.

“Lima’s future is going to be very bright,” Nauseff said. “This is what investors in the region are investing. There is over $3 million to usher in the first phase of a four-phase plan to revitalize and rejuvenate downtown Lima,” Nauseff said.

The Central District aims to bring workspaces, apartments, creative studios, makerspaces, retail, a dog park, and more to downtown.

House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, said he’s happy to see his city prosper and Ohio as a whole.

“I’m very happy to see the economic development in Ohio,” Cupp said. “This follows a trend we are seeing across the state and is a testament to all the hard work being done by elected leaders at the local and state level. But it’s also about the work that business owners do and their confidence in what we do in Ohio.

Governor DeWine had nothing but good things to say about Lima and Allen County and their economic leadership.

“It’s something the community did. They came together with a vision. What they’re saying is ‘look, we need to improve our downtown and that’s how we see downtown. city ​​becoming.” If you look at some of these images, it sounds very, very exciting for Lima and very exciting for Allen County.