BY RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WILMINGTON -- Neon signs for gas stations and McDonald's golden arches already break the horizon of corn fields and farm houses at Exit 50 of Interstate 71.
Within the next few years, the handful of businesses at the Ohio 68 interchange can expect a lot more company -- and a lot less farmland. A proposed 25-acre recreational vehicles dealership and service center received unanimous approval in late May from the county's zoning appeals board. The company, Bush Auto Place, expects to open the facility within a year.
On its heels comes a plan to develop up to 500 acres at the interchange by R&L Carriers, a Clinton County-based trucking company owned by local resident Larry Roberts and his family.
The company foresees at least one hotel with an attached community center and several restaurants, including some sit-down eateries. The plan also calls for the development of some retail businesses and up to a dozen warehouse or light industrial facilities.
The trucking company also intends to expand this year the trucking hub at its corporate headquarters just south of the interchange. Up to 70 acres would be added to the existing 80-acre facility, which opened in 1995.
While some community leaders say the proposals should boost the county's economy, the plans also highlight the tenuous balance of maintaining an area's rural flavor with inevitable residential, commercial and industrial growth.
Since 1992, about 4,000 acres of Clinton County farmland has been lost to development annually. In a county that uses about 230,000 of its 257,000 acres for agriculture, the shrinking amount of farmland is alarming, said Tony Nye, agricultural and natural resource agent for the Clinton County Extension Office.
"If we're losing 4,000 acres now, what are we going to be losing next year and the next year?" Mr. Nye asked.
The area can accommodate a great deal of economic development without sacrificing its rural identity, said Ken Schaublin, executive director of the Clinton County Regional Planning Commission. The key is for farmers, developers and residents to decide what they want Clinton County to look like in 10 years.
Before R&L can shop for businesses to put in the proposed development, it has to lay the foundation: the infrastructure. The area had no sanitary sewer system until the trucking company began building a $2 million, 150,000-gallon facility. It's expected to be completed this summer.
Already, R&L has made improvements on the electrical system and has built a $1 million, 1-million-gallon water tank.
R&L and Bush Auto say they respect the community's desire to keep the interchange from turning into another congested Fields-Ertel Road exit.
The RV facility's design will be unusual, said Mark Bush, general manager of Bush Auto. Instead of row upon row of RVs, the business will have up to 200 vehicles in a campground-like setting, replete with ponds and picnic tables.
"As much as some people in this community do not want growth," said Mike Murray, vice president of R&L Carriers, "there's a real benefit in having the Roberts family be the developers of this land. They care about what's going on in the community. They personally view this as one of the gateways to Clinton County. They don't want it to become an out-of-control development."
