ADENA — It was about two years ago that officials with the village of Adena first heard about the Ohio Department of Development’s Appalachian Community Grant Program, which was offering $500 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to projects in 32 Appalachian Ohio counties.

After much collaboration and hard work to form a suitable proposal, the village’s roughly $4.5 million funding request for a downtown revitalization project was submitted in December in an application by the Ohio Mid-Eastern Governments Association, the regional development district for Jefferson and nine other counties.

Funding was announced in rounds, beginning earlier this year, but it wasn’t until Thursday that news came in for Adena, a community of 664 that straddles the line between southwestern Jefferson and southeastern Harrison counties.

Brenda Roski, a retired postmaster and Adena’s mayor since 2020, recalled getting numerous calls early Thursday from Robert Naylor, executive director of the Jefferson County Port Authority, who had worked with the village before its proposal was submitted to OMEGA. Naylor told Roski to check her office phone for a possible call from Gov. Mike DeWine’s office.

Roski had gotten a voicemail from John Carey, director of the Governor’s Office of Appalachia, offering her congratulations on being awarded funding and inviting her to an official announcement meeting in Geneva at 10 a.m.

“I’m thinking: ‘Well, at least we got something out of the work,'” Roski recalled. “I never expected anything. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”

After an unsuccessful attempt to call Carey back, Roski attended the meeting with Adena Village Council President R.J. Konkoleski, but Adena was never mentioned during the presentation — the village wasn’t on the agenda since Roski couldn’t be reached.

So, Roski approached Carey afterward and inquired about the village’s funding. Tears welled in her eyes as Carey told her Adena’s project was fully funded, receiving $4.572 million.

“It was a day I’ll never forget because Adena is a very small community, and we’ve always felt that … we’re the last ones to get anything,” Roski said Friday. “The little coal mine town of Adena was shining like a diamond yesterday because all the work finally paid off. This is going to be a major facelift for Adena. It’s going to be beautiful.”

Adena’s project was created about 20 years ago, upon the village receiving a planning grant to create a downtown redevelopment plan, said Konkoleski. The village engaged with architect Gabe Hays, performed surveys and developed renderings for a conceptual streetscape revitalization. However, plans were shelved over financial concerns.

When the Appalachian grant program was announced, the village figured the project would fit perfectly. The village re-engaged with Hays who made time for late-night walks through downtown to visualize concepts, and it began to update the plan based on current costs and legal requirements.

“It was a lot of fun to put together, and I think it was that head start that got us moving so quickly because we weren’t just starting from scratch,” Konkoleski said.

Along with Hays, many parties pitched in to help with the project, including Naylor and the port authority, the Zanesville-Muskingum County Port Authority, the Jefferson County commissioners and OMEGA. Roski noted that local partnerships were key to success in the grant program.

Roski called Konkoleski “the brains of the operation,” citing his admirable passion for Adena and its history.

The finished project details an overhaul for a portion of Adena’s downtown forming a cross with West and East Main streets, South Bridge Street and North Mill Street.

Improvements include replacing portions of the brick roads — which date back to the 1920s — where other materials had been previously used to fill in. Concrete work will be done on curbs and sidewalks, and existing tree lawns will receive care for trees to be planted along the roadside. Historic light poles will be replaced with ones from the same manufacturer, and street signs will be replaced.

Also detailed in the project is the renovation of the former People’s National Bank building at 10 W. Main St.

Constructed in 1917, the historic building is a “keystone structure” of downtown, Konkoleski said, but after changing hands multiple times, it has been empty for the last decade or so. It will be renovated into a multi-use building, capable of accommodating several businesses, with a new elevator for handicap accessibility. A proposed use for the renovated building is as a coffee shop to help anchor businesses downtown.

The building’s owners, Randy and Mary Borkoski, agreed to donate it to the nonprofit Adena Historical Society, which will hold the building post-renovation, Konkoleski said, noting that the donation shows community buy-in for the project.

With all of the costs covered, work on the project will begin once the Governor’s Office of Appalachia begins disbursals. Projects must be complete by 2026.

Adena may be oft-forgotten, but they’ll certainly know where it is after the revitalization, Roski said. Her hope, she said, is that a spruced-up downtown will encourage residents to take more pride in their town and take better care of their own properties.

“I want to see flowers and trees and everything cleaned up to the best of their ability. … (Adena) is good now, but it’s going to be twice as nice. I just want everybody who comes to say, ‘Wow, what a beautiful little community.'”

Roski said she hopes residents will bear with inconveniences resulting from construction work. She added that she’d like to see the village included in a driving tour of completed Appalachian grant program projects.

“We’ve seen in the last couple of years, with the development of natural resources in the area, … a lot of people are moving into town, homes are selling quickly and property values are going up. You’re starting to see people in the evenings walking downtown, spending some time outdoors,” Konkoleski said.

“We really want to get our downtown to be a place with a couple options for dining, maybe a few bars, unique retail experiences, maybe a clothing boutique, an antique shop, something like that to rebuild that small-town America feel that we had years ago but, like so many other things, has fallen by the wayside.”

With funding rounds concluded, Adena’s project is the only one in Jefferson County to receive money from the program. Although it would have been nice if every Jefferson County project would have received funding, Konkoleski said, the honor speaks to the quality of Adena’s project, and it “makes me very hopeful about the future of our community.”

Addressing those who helped along the way, Roski said, “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and I hope that you all come and see us when this is all done.”