RED LION, Warren County — United Dairy Farmers is working with state transportation and environmental officials on a project fueled by the $8.2 million road project transforming this crossroads community.

UDF’s plans for a gas station-convenience store on Ohio 741, just south of the crossroads, unfold as the state continues work eliminating the busy five-point intersection that created safety problems for drivers traveling between Lebanon and Springboro.

Ultimately the work also will open up more than 500 acres, most in farm fields, for residential and commercial development between the region’s two largest cities.

“It makes you appreciate that Cincinnati and Dayton are growing closer and closer year after year,” developer Gen Mello said this week.

In anticipation of the growth, Mello is marketing an acre of commercial land, just east of the Red Lion intersection, for $500,000 – more than twice what he and a partner paid for it in 2005.

“Springboro is growing south, Lebanon is growing North,” he said. “It’s definitely going to happen.”

Already the state has shifted, about 1,200 feet east, the section of Ohio 123 running past the former location of Mom’s, a popular restaurant. The road work is expected to continue through October.

UDF is seeking permits for a package sewage system through the Ohio EPA and road improvements through the Ohio Department of Transportation, for property on Ohio 741, on the southwest corner of the intersection, according to state officials.

The Cincinnati-based company did not respond to requests for comment.

Red Lion is an aging mix of homes, churches and small businesses, but housing subdivisions and commercial growth would fit Clearcreek Twp.’’s master plan for the area. Beyond the center and sections zoned for office and residential development, vacant farmland east of town is planned for industrial development.

A new gas station-convenient store would also create a competitive situation for the only existing store-gas station on the northeast corner of Ohio 122 and Ohio 741. Last week, regular gas at the station was 12 cents more expensive than at a UDF along a commercial strip in Springboro.

The new alignment of Ohio 123 at Ohio 122 opened on Nov. 5. Homes and businesses along the stretch that formerly passed Mom’s now access their properties off a side road south of the new intersection.

By next October, the state plans to have razed the former Mom’s building and widened the existing legs of the intersection: north and southbound Ohio 741, westbound Ohio 122/Ohio 123 and eastbound Ohio 122.

Mom’s moved north on Ohio 123 into a service station complex just east of Interstate 75. In March, owner Hilda Ratliff and her lawyer and lawyers representing the state, county and Lebanon Citizens National Bank are scheduled for a two-day trial in Warren County Common Pleas Court over the taking of the former location.

Other property owners look forward to the anticipated development.

“We’ve seen a lot of changes,” said Gene Lamb, a Red Lion resident and proprietor of the local barber shop. “I think it’s getting ready to boom.”