MANSFIELD — It wasn’t until Doug Versaw, convener of the Richland Community Development Group’s Mansfield Area Beautification sector, purchased some property at Charles Mill Lake that he began traversing Park Avenue East more frequently and noticed what an eyesore the underpass, also known as the “subway,” had become.
While stopped at a red light, he thought to himself, “This looks awful.”
Motivated to make a change, he submitted a proposal to the Richland County Foundation for beautification improvements at the subway and received $10,000 in grant funds from the foundation.
Local businesses and individuals chipped in to help spruce up the area.
“We were able to raise another $5,000 in cash and then at least $15,000 of in-kind donations,” he said.
Rex’s Landscaping and Construction has served as a huge help in transforming the property — a practice that the company is quite familiar with, having renovated its headquarters at the former Petersen Tire property, at the corner of Ashland Road and East Fourth Street (just down the street from the subway).
“As we began to travel this corridor much more, Andy Rex (owner of Rex’s Landscaping) and I both looked at it and said, ‘It’s extremely ugly down there at the subway, and we ought to do something to clean it up,'” said Jon Stierhoff, director of operations.
Rex’s started cleaning up the property before the beautification project officially began, knowing that they wanted it to get cleaned up regardless.
“Both Andy and I share a passion to make things cleaner and better,” Stierhoff said.
Rex’s removed deteriorated concrete and steel poles to make room for additional green space.
A concrete wall was also removed. In its place is a new gravity based retaining wall suitable to meet the engineering needs of the site, which was donated by Cement Products.
“There was such a heavy amount of vegetation growing in here that a lot of things are going to try and come back in so we’ve actually sprayed it three or four times this year already,” Stierhoff said.
Rex’s Landscaping will continually maintain the property, equating to about $3,000 in in-kind donations on a yearly basis, Stierhoff estimated.
“We gotta thank Rex’s Landscaping,” Versaw said. “They’re going to take care of this property, all four sides. They’re going to mow it, make sure that the plants are surviving.”
Versaw also praised Dan Jacobs, owner of Jacobs Excavating, for his help with the project. Jacobs donated 50 loads of fill dirt and another five loads of topsoil for the site, he estimated.
“I just like things to look good,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs has been involved in numerous beautification projects. Next on his list is the former Westinghouse property.
Other businesses and individuals that supported the project include The Corpad Company, Rex’s Capital, Ohio Edison/First Energy, Lamar Advertising, George Mathews, Jean Sauter and Ann Brothers. Joe Hill of Element of Art created artwork for the billboard at the site.
