City of Logan projects delayed by government shutdown, planning continues regardless

The federal government shutdown has put a stop to the flow of federal funding for the City of Logan's ongoing economic development projects, but it hasn't slowed its planning processes.

Robert Fields | WVOW News

LOGAN, WV As the federal government shutdown continues, it has brought an effective halt to many of the major projects going on in the City of Logan. However, the lines of communication have stayed open as city officials work with partner groups to get those projects back underway once the lights are back on in Congress and federal funding streams can continue.

One of the city’s ongoing partnerships has been with the Accelerate West Virginia program to explore potential sources of community-led economic growth. Grace Lawson is a Community Coach and Communications Coordinator for the non-profit West Virginia Community Development Hub. Speaking with WVOW News, she says many of the city’s ongoing projects are part of a partnership the program has forged with over a dozen communities across the state’s southern counties.

Grace Lawson, Community Coaching and Communications Coordinator

“We selected 16 communities across two cohorts – so, Logan is in the second cohort that holds ten communities – and each of those communities are writing what we call an economic resilience plan. It’s an actionable plan to help communities diversify ways that they’re growing their economy, their workforce, things like that,” she said.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration explains an economic resilience plan as a way to build up a community’s economy to maintain stability and growth while adapting to any potential shifts in economic trends. It involves shoring up several parts of a community’s planning efforts, from hazard mitigation plans to finding a wide range of funding sources and specifically targeting industries that grow from and build on the local area’s unique assets and resources.

For the City of Logan, major focuses have been on the medical and tourism industries. That’s reflected in the past and present efforts to expand the Hatfield-McCoy Trails system as well as its new medical residency program. City officials partnered last year with the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University to launch what is now being called the White Coat Workforce Rural General Surgery Residency Program. That project earned the city the designation of a “White Coat Community,” a title which itself has a history of drawing more medical professionals into those municipalities.

Part of the city’s involvement with Accelerate West Virginia is a $45,000 fund to be used for technical assistance. Out of that fund, the city voted in May to approve $17,500 to pay for a feasibility study by the company REVPAR International, to determine whether a hotel would be a reasonable thing to build in the downtown area.

Brianna Hickman is the Project Director for the Hub’s Community and Business Resilience Initiative, which oversees the Accelerate West Virginia program. She explains how that funding works and what technical assistance is, as well as the practical purpose of the study done by REVPAR International.

Brianna Hickman, CBRI Project Director

“Technical assistance is essentially like the soft costs, so these are not construction dollars. So, basically, each community in the Accelerate West Virginia program has up to $45,000 in the technical assistance funds to put towards the projects in their communities, but it’s essentially all of the pre-work before you actually start lifting dirt. It’s the feasibility analyses, it’s the engineering studies, it’s all of the work that happens to make sure that a project even is feasible to begin with,” she explained.

The Hub handles the money that comes through its technical assistance funding, meaning the City of Logan has not had to use taxpayer money to fund the feasibility study.

“The team and the city are not going into this and saying ‘hey, we would like a hotel, so let’s just build a hotel.’ They’re looking at this as an opportunity to make sure that this is something that’s actually realistic for the community and that the demand is there.”

City Fire Chief and Code Enforcement Officer Scott Beckett has said previously that Logan should have enough funding sources to get the hotel project underway without having to touch the city’s accounts.

PHOTOS | wvhub.org