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Council hears economic impact for downtown boat launch among other project proposals

The City of Warren has millions in state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program funds to – eventually – get on the street targeted at development projects to benefit the community.

It’s been a moving target. Some proposals have changed. Others have gone away.

Warren City Council spent much of Monday night’s meeting sorting out who, preliminarily, gets what.

The most discussed project recently has been the idea of a downtown boat launch at the base of Liberty St.

The city has asked the county commissioners for $500,000 in American Rescue Plan funds. But that ask puts the onus on the city to justify the request.

Jim Decker, WCCBI president/CEO, presented some projected economic impact figures during Monday’s meeting.

He emphasized that the projections are conservative in nature and based on data both from Allegheny Outfitters and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

From the AO data, Decker said the period he reviewed was May through September of this year, when 5,846 canoes or kayaks were rented out. Pulling out weather cancellations, he said it results in 53 canoes or kayaks per day.

Gross revenue from the rental fees along with a “very conservative” estimate of $50 in provisions that people would purchase for those trips resulted in a $743,000 projection, he said.

For the USACE data, Decker explained the Corps has a vehicle counter on the boat launch at the Kinzua Dam tailwaters which counted 28,944 cars from Oct. 2020 through Sept. 2021 which was “somewhat surprising to me.”

Working with the assumption that 75 percent of those vehicles put a craft in the water – multiple craft per vehicle is common, especially with kayaks – and including the same $50 trip expenditure that projection came to $874,000 annually.

That roughly $1.6 million total, Decker noted, is just for five months of the year.

That data is just part of the puzzle to pitch a downtown boat launch. There’s more work to do.

“We know there’s going to be activity,” Decker said. “(We) will continue to crunch the numbers.”

He said a projected 10,000 launches at a downtown launch is a number that “has been criticized as ridiculous (but) these numbers are real (and) documented. He said the Corps is undertaking work next year at the tailwaters launch to make that site a “more attractive and usable site.

“(We) need to mirror that in the City of Warren,” he said, to develop “a more pleasant experience to get off the river… and where we want them” to support downtown business.

Councilman John Wortman asked how the city can assist in the pitch to the county for funding.

Lobbying in person is one step but Decker laid out the broader argument.

“The city is the hub of employment for the county,” he said. “The more that the city can do to make itself attractive for employment, the better the county is overall…. The stronger the city is, the stronger everything in Warren County is.”

Several other projects – including a second proposal for a downtown boutique hotel on Liberty St. – were also discussed during Monday’s meeting and will be more fully explored in Wednesday’s Times Observer.

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