News
Eastpointe Park Continues to Grow
By: Fred Kight
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The Zanesville-Muskingum County Port Authority is planning to add more railroad capacity at the EastPointe Business Park.
Port Authority Executive Director Mike Jacoby says a just-announced state grant will help with construction of a third rail spur for the Rail Transfer Station.
"We've had interest from a local plastics recycler – which is just growing by leaps and bounds – which is talking about maybe loading the rail cars from truck and shipping out," he says. "It's probably going to be more product coming in than going out by rail but you never really know and we want to have the opportunity to do both."
Jacoby calls the Eastpointe industrial park "a really unique asset."
"What we have in Muskingum County is really a gem and it took a lot of vision and it took a lot of foresight and it took some risk- taking and people had to spend some money," he says. "In 15 years of history it's paying off quite well. We think there's probably been about $17 million in public infrastructure investment. We have four operating companies in the park. We just sold a parcel to Haliburton and they're under construction. Right now we've got about 1400 jobs in the park."
Jacoby says that number will be growing to 1700.
"We've sold off a lot of the 1200 acres (of park land)," he says. "We think we've got about 60 acres of useable ground left."