Elite Pharmacy, located at 49 E. Taggart St., will officially open on Oct. 1 in East Palestine. It’s a sign of better economical things to come for the village. (Photo by Stephanie Elverd)

EAST PALESTINE — Sometimes, you have to clear your own obstacles. That’s the approach the Village of East Palestine took recently by establishing its own building department.

Village manager Antonio-Diaz Guy said the new department will foster and promote economic growth in the village by putting the power of permits into the village’s hands and cutting through the red tape.

“East Palestine having its own building department will allow us to offer existing and new businesses a more hands-on and advisory approach to building permitting through direct and personal interactions with the team, as well as will dramatically reduce the timeline for commercial building permit reviews and inspections,” Diaz-Guy said. “We need to move at the speed of business in East Palestine and the faster and smoother we can make these processes, the more attractive we become for development.”

Council established the building department last week at Diaz-Guy’s request. Two other legislation items followed — a request for certification of the village to enforce building codes and to enter into an agreement with third-party Elevate Business Solutions (EBS) as the village’s “primary contractor for that department.”

Elevate Business Solutions was created two and half years ago by the Sustainable Opportunity Development (SOD) Center in Salem as a solution to a problem — the slow pace at which the state issues permits.

“We were losing projects. We weren’t winning large expansion projects because of the time frame we were facing using the state building department,” SOD Center and EBS executive director Julie Needs said. “The challenges we had in our downtown with historic buildings is that our state building officials and plan examiners and inspectors didn’t understand the market. They didn’t understand the building. An outside developer or business didn’t have six months to wait. They need us to be working at the speed of business. And that wasn’t happening.”

EBS initially began as a collaboration between the cities of Columbiana and Salem to assist both communities with their growing commercial building needs. Most recently, Leetonia retained EBS’ services as EBS is now a third-party provider of building department services — as an alternative to going through the state — to jurisdictions and municipalities in Columbiana County.

Needs said before EBS, it took an average of six months just to hear the first comments on submitted plans submitted through the state to the state. She said “putting the building department in” has made an extraordinary difference” in both Salem and Columbiana. The six month turnaround time has been slashed from six months to six days because developers are “able to walk into a local office and hand their plans in.” The expedited process, Diaz-Guy, is an incentive for those looking to expand or set up shop in the village.

“If businesses have to choose between expanding or moving to East Palestine or another municipality, they are going to see real value in the speed and simplicity of working with our building department,” he said.

Without a third-party contractor like EBS, villages like East Palestine and Leetonia and even cities like Salem and Columbiana couldn’t afford the expense of their own building departments.

“It’s a shared service. For a municipality to have their own building department at a minimum is about a half million dollars a year for insurance and the staff you have to have per the state,” Needs said. “This allows us to share those services across multiple jurisdictions at a very nominal fee per jurisdiction.”

Under the agreement, East Palestine will pay EBS $25,000 and allow EBS to keep 95% the surplus of permitting fees while the village would get 5%.

EBS’ permit fees are comparable to current state fees, but EBS also offers a fee schedule that is scaled to the size of the project.

“When we did calculations on a new build or on renovations, we were either 10 percent below or 10 percent above. It depends on the type of projects,” Needs said. “There are some things we have itemized out that the state has not, so [with the state] you are getting a large fee. We itemized it to an individual fee like a per window fee.”

EBS also provides what the state doesn’t — personal interactions and guidance from start to finish.

“It’s the one-on-one conversations we have with local build owners and helping them navigate the building process,” EBS commercial building official Jim Murray said. “What we offer is the chance to come in, have a discussion and talk about what your plans are as far as having to navigate the code. In a lot of cases, we can get people sent on the way so they are efficient in their planning project that they want to see until the end.”

EBS also offers a consultation for those considering opening, expanding or improving commercial property.

“We do offer consultation before going down the road of hiring a design professional to do that,” Murray added. “We can try to address as many questions as we possibly can.”

The establishment of the building department within the village and contracting EBS is the latest move by the village to improve economic health. The village previously created a Community Improvement Corporation (CIC) and has promoted Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) abatements as a tool to attract businesses and investments to the village. CRA programs encourage new construction, expansion, and rehabilitation, revitalizing existing housing stock and attracting new residents and businesses by reducing or eliminating the increase in property taxes caused by the improvements.

“East Palestine has made moves to remarket our Community Reinvestment Act tax breaks, even in light of the potential changes to property taxes within Ohio,” Diaz-Guy said. “We are working with our CIC to provide support where needed to bring some local property restoration and development projects over the finish line. Further, we are in the process of reviewing other economic incentives and programs with local partners and internally, so that we can provide the most economically competitive package to business and property owners.”

There’s other things in the works, but it’s clear some of the moves made are already working. New businesses have recently opened in East Palestine and others will shortly, including Elite Pharmacy at 49 E. Taggart Street on Oct. 1.

“East Palestine is seeing growth in our cottage industry businesses as well, and if you drive around the community, you see new houses being built, properties being improved, and citizens out and about,” Diaz-Guy said.

The village is still working to shake off the stigma of the 2023 train derailment and breathe life back into an economy that was failing long before the train careened off track two and half years ago. It’s not about pretending the derailment didn’t happen but rather refusing to let the derailment define the town. And while some businesses have closed their doors due to the derailment, others, like Elite Pharmacy, are taking a chance on East Palestine – a town that Diaz-Guy acknowledges is still recovering but also resurging.

“I believe that East Palestine is ready to take steps forward, moving on from the train derailment and towards the next stage in our future,”Diaz-Guy said. “We will not forget this incident, nor should we. But, we cannot be held hostage to the stigma that surrounds it. We remain committed to working with all parties to advance the long-term social, emotional, and economic health of the community, and moving forward is one part of that equation.”

selverd@mojonews.com