Two buildings at nature center getting makeovers
DOVER (WJER) (Aug. 19, 2024) – Tuscarawas County is getting $250,000 from Ohio’s One-Time Strategic Investment Fund to rehabilitate the center’s iconic red barn. Parks Director Jesse Rothacher says that’s on top of the $350,000 in American Rescue Plan money the county commissioners had already contributed to the effort.
“The costs for the red barn are a little higher than what we were initially awarded through the ARPA funds, and a lot of that is simply just due to the fact that it’s a barn and it’s 99 feet long. There’s a lot of material, so even basic things like painting, the scale goes up.”
The barn is over a hundred years old and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“The foundation on the bottom was bulging a little bit. The building – it may or may not have shifted. There were some water issues, posts with wood rot, things like that, so we’re hopeful we can address those problems and stabilize the building.”
Federal money the county received during the COVID-19 pandemic is also being used to turn the center’s Brandywine building into a new headquarters for the park department and educational space.
“Right now, we don’t have any indoor spaces that Marsha Freeland, our programming and education manager, can use to work with groups and things like that. So by getting the Brandywine Center and the red barn kind of modernized and improved, we can look at exploring different ways to engage with the public.”
Rothacher and his staff currently work out of the Tuscarawas County Courthouse complex. He says the move will give the department more storage space, decrease response times, and make the operation more efficient.