News Summary

MIDDLETOWN — Opposition is rising against a proposed professional office village that may result in widening Union Road south of Ohio 122 and moving one of Warren County's oldest cemeteries.

The Middletown Planning Commission last month approved a preliminary development plan for Great Midwest Development's Renaissance Professional Village. The three-phase project includes 22 office condominium buildings

to be built on 15 acres east of Union Road.

Future area transportation plans indicate Union Road as a parallel arterial road east of Interstate 75 that may need to be widened from two lanes to five lanes according to Middletown and Warren County officials.

The Rev. Roger Green, pastor of Grace Baptist Church whose campus includes Middletown Christian School, its athletic fields, and cemetery located west of Union Road, said the planning commission ignored concerns of the church, which has retained a lawyer.

If the road is widened, it would require nearly 23 feet on each side of the center line, city officials said. Green said that would impact the use of the school's athletic fields as well as other facilities. The church has stood there since 1973.

"We've kind of become a sandwich," Green said. "The state is taking part of our front parking lot for the improvements to I-75 interchange (at Ohio 122) and the city is on the east side."

Also in the right of way on Union Road's east side is Dicks Creek Cemetery, which is one of the oldest in Warren County and the final resting place of seven Revolutionary War and two Civil War veterans, said Franklin Twp. Trustee President Phyllis Darragh.

The township became the owners of the half-acre cemetery in the 1990s, she said.

Darragh said the trustees and two of the families whose ancestors are buried there want to leave the cemetery as it is.

"We're opposed to bulldozing a cemetery and scattering bones all over in the name of progress," she said. "We don't want to destroy something historic. We're going to do everything we can to preserve it."

Warren County Engineer Neil Tunison said the county is working with Middletown to develop a master plan.

"I'll help them with other parts of developing a road network but moving a cemetery is not something I want to do," he said.

Tunison said the Greentree Area Traffic Study review should be completed in the next two months. It calls for the widening of Union Road and the county is determining how and when that will done, he said.

Sharon Smigielski, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Transportation's District 8 office in Lebanon, said the state avoids moving cemeteries because "it's a lengthy and expensive proposition."

Possible costs include genealogical research; locating families and getting their approval to move any remains; and reinterment costs, she said.

Martin Kohler, Middletown's planning director, said the city has received a traffic impact study of the area and is being reviewed by the Engineering Department.

Kohler was unsure when the developer would submit the final development plan for the project.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2871 or erichter@coxohio.com.