A number of sites in the Greater Cincinnati region won a recent round of grant funding from the state of Ohio.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday announced more than $152 million in grant funding via the Ohio Wonderful Waterfronts Initiative. Last week, DeWine announced $154 million in grants via another program called the Appalachian Downtowns and Destinations Initiative.
Both are part of a larger effort to fund projects in Ohio's Appalachian region. Projects in the vicinity of Greater Cincinnati won millions from both.
New Richmond in Clermont County will get $13.4 million from the Waterfronts Initiative to build Liberty Landing. That development will include a marina, a trail providing river access, an amphitheater, and more.
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Efforts in Brown County villages Ripley and Higginsport are also among the 21 communities receiving funding from the Waterfronts Initiative. More than $6 million will go to revitalize a seven-acre park in Higginsport. That project will include a boat dock, fishing pier, bridge and mural. About $16 million will go to waterfront development in Ripley, including better access to the village's historic Underground Railroad sites.
The boyhood home of Ulysses S. Grant will be among the sites getting funding under the Downtowns and Destinations Initiative. More than $8 million will go to revitalizing the site and surrounding streetscapes in the village of Georgetown. That will include transforming an existing downtown building into a new visitors center for the historic site.
Another Brown County project will receive $5 million from the state to revitalize a health care center in Mount Orab.
A number of Indigenous earthworks sites across the region, including Serpent Mound, Seip Earthworks and the Hopewell Mound Group, will also receive funding from the grant program.
Serpent Mound will get more than $6 million from the state for a new observation tower. The Indigenous earthworks site is too large to see entirely from ground level and has been without a functioning tower for several years. The Village of Peebles will also use some of that money to improve streetscapes.
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The Hopewell Mound Group, Hopeton Earthworks Experience and Seips Earthworks sites in Ross County will all receive smaller grants to improve restrooms, signage and trails.
"Our state's origins are in Appalachia; it's where our history began," DeWine said in a release. "But right now — this is Appalachia's time to flourish."