City Land Swap With Duncan Oil

The city of Middletown and Duncan Oil are about to enter into what looks like a lengthy contract all for the sake of a train station. According to the work book for this December 1, 2009 city council meeting, Duncan Oil and the City will swap what looks like 30 pieces of land in the downtown area 22 of which the city owns. I did some research today on the Butler County Auditors website and put together a map of the land that city owns and will be trading to Duncan Oil for the building of a new gas station/ store. In return the city gets the 8 pieces of land that Duncan owns for development of the new train station.

Here is the map with the city’s land highlighted in red,

I did try to find the land that Duncan Oil will be using for this trade, but the Butler County Auditor’s site seemed to begin to act up as I started my search. I do know that one is the old Shamrock Station and the other looked to be the old office outfitters or a building near there. It is hard to see anything on these maps.

If you would like to try and search for yourself, you can go to Butler County Auditor’s and just enter the Parcel Id number which you can find here City of Middletown and Duncan Oil Gateway Project

SW neither you nor the city have made a persuasive argument as to why anyone is going to come to Middletown by train.  So your contention is Middletown will die if it doesn't get a train stop on the 3C Savior Express, sure gonna be a lot of dead cities between Cleveland and Cincy.   If there was some compelling reason for people to travel by train to Middletown I could see it.  But you and the city seem to think hundreds are going to flock to Middletown on a train that runs 2-3 times a day with 6-8 hrs to make a round trip.  I am not getting it.

This is part of the New Five Year Plan and the City will do this deal weather you like it or not. In my opinion this is a complete waste of Federal, State and Local Funds.
     What will happen over the next two years when they find out that they can’t make any money on this deal and pull the plug on this rail line?
    Over the last six years I have requested numerous times that the City get CSX to clean up their property between the cemetery and the tracks and I’m still waiting. Is CSX going to clean up all the property they own as part of this new vision?
    And we still haven’t solved the problem of the train horns within city limits.

By the way, I'm sure that the only way our all-powerful Grand Pisbah of Landmarks and Historic Junk will allow this to happen will be if he, himself, oversees all aspects of the project to ensure hysterical accuracy--for a small six-figure fee, of course!!\

I drove downtown last night and had a look around the area to see just what the city was buying and just what Duncan was giving up. I still cant figure out what is going on here. If the city does not plan on building a new train station what are they building? If the only thing being built is the new Shamrock station then Middletown is in trouble when and if this train does stop here.

Lets be honest here OK, People riding this train through Middletown are indeed going to get off here, but only once. Someone coming from Columbus that has never been in Middletown may get off the train to see just what we have to offer, when they see it is nothing they will not get off a second time. IMO

I agree Spider, we do not need another convenience store downtown, in fact one or two that we have now could stand to close, Mid-Town is a dump.  They do not offer pay at the pump, forcing people to get out of their cars and go inside to pay for gas. Big inconvenience! Spider I live not far from this station and dont go there for many reasons, it is in bad shape, along with that whole area.