DILLES BOTTOM — The Mead Township trustees have new and larger offices, thanks to PTT Global Chemical’s willingness to allow the township to conduct business in its unused facilities. For several years, PTTGC has invested in the area and is contemplating the construction of an ethane cracker plant.

“We made an arrangement with PTT Global Chemical to do a short-term lease on two of their facilities down on Dilles, and we’ve been discussing with them for some time the needs of the township because when they first engaged with us a few years ago, they asked us what they could do to partner with us,” Mead Township Trustee Ed Good said. “We signed that Enterprise Zone agreement and that was contingent upon the final investment, which hasn’t come yet. … We showed them our building.”

“The wall’s got a big bow in it. We’ve done numerous repairs on it. The building’s well over 100 years old, and they purchased a lot of property down in Dilles. One of the buildings they’ve purchased was the old Ohio-West Virginia Excavating offices, and Bechtel (Corp.), the group that was doing a lot of that earth movement down there, they were actually in that office building,” Good said. “Bechtel is no longer down there due to the stage of the project, and that building was just sitting there, so we talked to them.

“We understand that it’s in the footprint for the proposed plant, but our building is falling down. We’re concerned about safety of the employees, citizens when they come to the meetings, things like that,” Good said. “They checked out their legal end and they got back to us.

“It’s going to cost us $1 a month for each building for the lease, and they also gave us $150,000 for a transition fee, for us to be able to move our operations … to go down there. All this is with the understanding that if there is a final investment decision that we will have to vacate that,” Good said. “We’re working on some (U.S. Department of Agriculture) grants and some other opportunities to have a new facility back out in the township.”

The new office is at 55860 Dilles Bottom Road, Shadyside. Trustees moved from 51554 Wegee Road, Bellaire, and Good said the improvement is noticeable.

“We’re still in the process of moving. Actually, we had our first meeting there Monday and it went really well. We have our regulars that show up at the meeting, and they came in and they were really impressed with it. They had a lot of positive comments and thought that it was a good move for us. It allows for more social distancing for people to come to our meetings if COVID raises its head again,”Good said.

“Our old office area was 240 square feet. … This new office space, it’s over 3,000 square feet. It’s a number of offices, a reception area and a conference room. It suits our needs perfectly for right now. We’re also going to have a map room and better storage for our records and our record retention.

“We couldn’t, in my opinion, property store our records out at the other building due to the fleet and moisture in the air was very difficult. This will allow us to properly store our records, maintain them,” Good said.

In addition, the garage now being leased is more than 16,000 square feet compared to the prior garage in the township, which had little more than 3,000 square feet.

“It’s going to allow us to keep all of our equipment under roof. It’s going to be great for the workers, for the crews, because that small work space out there they’re walking around equipment, they’re constantly moving equipment. … With this new facility, they won’t have to deal with any of that,” Good said.

Good said there are no current plans for the old building until the trustees are certain that funding is available.

“We have not made a final decision on what we’re going to do with the building. It’s almost at the point where it’s going to have to be torn down in some time, and we still hope to be able to use it for a yard for our cinders and salt,” Good said.

He brought up the arrangement when PTT executives met with local officials Wednesday.

“We met with the PTT Global Chemicals CEO (Panod Awainanond) and personally thanked him for the arrangement we came up with,” Good said. “They have been absolutely great to work with. I can’t say enough about the transparency. We were able to personally thank him.”

The township trustees meet at 6 p.m. the third Monday of each month.