Coordination/Facilitation/Funding
Pilkington Rail Cross
The Port Authority is considered a “friendly borrower” and may receive favorable terms to accomplish difficult structures or incentive-driven transactions. The Port Authority can effectively combine sources of funds to finance a project including private market funds, state grants and loans, and the financial assistance from other Port Authorities.
For example, the Wood County Port Authority led a collaborative project among the Board of County Commissioners, JobsOhio, the Ohio Development Services Agency, the Ohio Rail Development Commission and Pilkington/NSG in order to reconstruct the rail crossing on Dixie Highway in Rossford. The Port Authority played a significant role in facilitating this collective and bringing all the partners and funding together for this project. The rail crossing is an essential to the operation of Pilkington/NSG so having the construction turnover in a short amount of time was necessary and the project was operational in less than three days.
Liberty Hi Road Overpass – CSX
Another project that the Wood County Port Authority facilitated was the Liberty Hi Road project in North Baltimore along with CSX. This project gave Wood County Port Authority the ability to promote opportunities for businesses to come to Northwest Ohio and Wood County. The Liberty Hi Road had to be rerouted but an engineer stated that it would take 3 years and CSX could not wait that long. CSX came to the Wood County Port Authority to see if they could accept grant money and could complete the project around a year timeframe. Due to their network and facilitating abilities, the Wood County Port Authority reached out to ODOT and ultimately set up an agreement. The completed rerouting of the road took less than a year.