WARREN — The new year hopefully will bring big plans involving an industrial area straddling Howland and the city of Warren, as Trumbull County officials hope next month’s bid opening is successful.

Howland Planning Director Kim Mascarella said earlier this month that the recommended improvements in the Golden Triangle Industrial Area, which spans 1,000 acres in the county’s central area, are almost complete.

Bids for the project were put out Dec. 1, giving interested companies until Jan. 8 to submit a proposal.

“All of 2026 will be spent implementing the project and construction and so forth, so we’ll look for some action to happen,” Mascarella said.

Mascarella said the Golden Triangle business advisory group — a team of industry representatives and public officials — will increase its meeting frequency in advance of the projects moving forward so the companies will stay informed about what’s going on.

“When we were engineering these projects, we met with the companies — I believe some modifications were made based on some feedback from some of the companies down there,” Mascarella said. “It’s that constant avenue of communication with these companies.”

The upcoming bid opening is the continuation of a decade-long effort led by the county, Warren and Howland, which began in 2014 when entities, along with the county engineer’s office and planning commission, heard from the area’s businesses, according to Mascarella.

She said the entities, as a planning partnership, were awarded an Economic Development Administration Local Technical Assistance Grant.

“We interviewed a dozen of the businesses down there, and they let us know what was needed — Dietz Road needs to be repaved and widened and the water line replaced,” Mascarella said. “This plan was a good check-in for businesses to collaborate with local government to make that place better.”

Mascarella said the area featured old infrastructure from raw materials that came and left as finished products by rail.

“It’s all truck traffic; those roads are narrow. It’s hard to make turns, and so all of that needed to be modernized,” she said. “These companies are retooling to modernize — government should be retooling and modernizing this street network.”

Mascarella said they’ve chipped away at the recommended improvements over the years, with Mill Street’s repaving and widening.

Implementing the improvements has cost $6 million, with half of the funding coming from federal sources, according to data provided by officials.

Mascarella said the latest project — and likely the biggest — is reconfiguring Larchmont and Overland Avenues and Bronze Road, which officials worked with the area’s railroad company to coordinate.

The reconfiguration would permit left turns from Bronze Road to Larchmont Avenue northbound to ease access to state Route 82, according to the project’s summary.

The project’s summary states that, as things stand, the Youngstown Belt rail line’s crossing Larchmont south of its intersection with Dietz at Bronze and Overland’s intersection.

The summary states that the result is a “confusing and potentially dangerous” intersection, where Bronze traffic is not permitted to turn left onto Larchmont.

The project includes intersection widening to help semi-trailer trucks turn and reconstructed traffic islands, as well as new sidewalks and 170 feet of storm sewer.

Mascarella said the second of two other projects, Bronze’s reconstruction, will have the road repaved and widened, and drainage will be improved along the road.

TRUMBULL COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION

Julie Green, director of the Trumbull County Planning Commission, said her office has been the fiscal point of contact for the project.

She said her involvement with the Golden Triangle project dates beyond her current role because she worked for the county commissioner’s office from 2014 to 2019 as its grants coordinator.

Green said the Golden Triangle was an industrial park before industrial parks were what they are now — an area drawing commerce.

She said the area has a business that is more than 100 years old, echoing Mascarella’s statements about the roads and infrastructure being undersized, which was identified during the planning process.

“(We) then applied for grant funding to ensure that these businesses stay here in Trumbull County,” Green said. “Because most of them are manufacturing facilities that employ higher-than-average wage positions.”

Green said they initially bid the project out in August and only got one bid in September for one of the contracts, explaining that the projects were separated as contracts A, B and C, but had to be awarded all at the same time to move forward.

“In order for us to request reimbursement from the federal government, we need to award all three contracts,” Green said. “There’s also the logistics, having staggered start dates and completion dates.”