City council gives OK to two projects

A project WEST CARROLLTON — to tear down a shopping center and another to build a $4.5 million volleyball complex featuring a restaurant and bar are moving ahead in West Carrollton.

The city council Tuesday night approved a measure to award a contract to demolish the 13-acre Carrollton Plaza near Interstate 75 and the Great Miami River.

The council also considered the sale of seven acres where the 82,000-squarefoot, indoor/outdoor athletic facility and restaurant/ bar is planned at the former site of a paper mill on Central Avenue.

The land sale for the project that could lead to as many as 50 jobs and attract hundreds of people to West Carrollton nightly is expected to be voted on next month.

The demolition of the shopping plaza — the former site of Roberds — also is set to start next month and is scheduled to last five months.

Green City Demolition won a $662,450 contract to clear the Dixie Drive site, where the city wants to attract an anchor for a multi-million dollar entertainment district along the river.

The volleyball complex site proposed by Spikeit LLC on the former Fraser Paper mill land is not part of the district. But city officials say the plan that includes 17 sand courts and 350 parking spaces is consistent with its vision.

The complex would include nine indoor courts and eight outdoor ones, according to city documents. The contract calls for a one-year moratorium on the city’s sale of any acreage to another business that operates in the food or beverage industry, according to West Carrollton officials.

Spike-It is applying for a D-5 liquor permit, according to West Carrollton Police Department records. If council approves the facility’s proposal Nov. 13, city officials said the targeted opening date is Oct. 1, 2019.