FY24 Community Project Funding
Interactive map of the 12 community projects approved for funding by the House Appropriations Committee, Congresswoman Sykes submitted for FY24. Click on an icon to learn more about each project.
12 of Congresswoman Emilia Strong Sykes' submitted funding requests for important community projects in our district were passed by the House, the Senate, and were signed by President Biden in March 2024.
Under guidelines issued by the Appropriations Committee, each Representative may request funding for up to 15 projects in fiscal year 2024. Projects are restricted to a limited number of federal funding streams, and only state and local governments and eligible non-profit entities are permitted to receive funding. Eligible projects may be included in government funding legislation. As the projects were included in legislation passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Biden, federal funding will go directly to support these OH-13 projects. Additional information on the reforms governing Community Project Funding is available here.
In compliance with House Rules and Committee requirements, Congresswoman Emilia Strong Sykes has certified that she, her spouse, and her immediate family have no financial interest in any of the projects approved.
Listed below are the projects championed by Congresswoman Sykes and passed by the House, Senate, and signed by President Biden to receive funding:
Project: The Akron Urban League- Community Crime Prevention and Youth Engagement Initiative
Address: 440 Vernon Odom Blvd., Akron, OH 44307
Amount Funded: $956,000
Project Description: The Akron Urban League will use this funding to promote alternatives to violence for at-risk youth through mentoring and life skills coaching, community leadership activities, and workforce development programming that will facilitate the finding, maintaining, and securing of employment opportunities. This funding is a good use of taxpayer funds because it will decrease the crime in vulnerable communities, and keep our communities and law enforcement engaged and safer, which studies have shown will decrease incarceration rates and state and federal justice system expenditures.
Project: Barberton Lake Anna Visitor Center
Address: 615 W. Park Ave, Barberton, OH 44203
Amount Funded: $1,000,000
Project Description: The City of Barberton will use this funding to construct a new Community Center in the City's Lake Anna Park. In addition to serving as a hub for outdoor recreational opportunities and activities, the project will further connect this vital community resource to the nearby north-south Towpath Trail, and developing east-west Silver Creek Trail, thereby connecting local neighborhoods and neighboring cities into the heart of the city.
Project: Summit County High Level Bridge Replacement Planning and Design
Address: 538 E South Street., Akron, OH 44311
Amount Funded: $4,116,279
Project Description: Summit County will use these funds to support a second phase of preliminary engineering work, public involvement activities, right-of-way acquisition, utility relocation, environmental studies, documentation, and clearance, and detailed design work.The alternative recommended by the Summit County Engineer’s office would replace the existing structure with a completely new structure as soon as practical, which is assumed to be ten years. The all-new structure will be on an offset alignment to allow the existing structure to carry traffic while the new structure is built. There will be minimal disruption to traffic during construction. Additional right of way is needed to construct the new structure.
Project: East Tuscawaras Streetscape Redesign
Address: 218 Cleveland Avenue SW, Canton, OH 44701
Amount Funded: $2,190,000
Project Description: The City of Canton will use this funding to reshape East Tuscarawas St. to improve driver and pedestrian safety by reducing the width of the roadway at pedestrian crossing areas. The project will help facilitate the rehabilitation of the eastern gateway into downtown Canton.
Project: Summit and Stark County Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program
Address: 53 University Ave. Akron, OH 44308
Amount Funded: $963,000
Project Description: The Summit County Sheriff's Office will use this funding for the purchase of at least two police cruisers for each law enforcement entity within Ohio's Thirteenth Congressional District for use during routine police patrol and response within their respective jurisdictions. This funding will provide crucial support for smaller police departments that, at times, struggle to provide their officers with modem vehicles that increase their safety and their ability to protect and serve their communities.
Project: The Girl Scouts of North East Ohio STEM Center of Excellence
Address: 7047 Akron Peninsula Road, Peninsula, OH 44264
Amount Funded: $850,000
Project Description:The Girl Scouts of North East Ohio will use this funding to supplement state, local, and private funding for their 7,755 square foot STEM Center, which will serve thousands of students in surrounding communities as well as all 18,000 of Girl Scouts of North East Ohio’s members. The facility will include classrooms, a multipurpose room, a wet lab, a maker space/workshop, a tech space, an outdoor classroom, and a rain garden.
Project: University of Akron Polymer Research Facility
Address: 170 University Circle, Akron, OH 44325
Amount Funded: $1,050,000
Project Description: The project components include the construction of a one-story approx. 20,000 sq. ft. building on the University of Akron main campus. This facility will serve as a manufacturing incubator for new materials and house a polymerization scale-up laboratory, product prototyping laboratory, wet-chemistry lab, space for testing and characterization of polymer and advanced materials. This funding will help create 1,200 jobs in the city of Akron and help accelerate Akron's robust polymer industry, which contributes billions to the region's tax base annually.
Project: Canal Fulton Water Elevated Water Storage Tank Project
Address: West Cherry Street, Canal Fulton, OH, 44614
Amount Funded: $500,000
Project Description: The City of Canal Fulton will use this funding to construct a new water tower and connect that tower to existing water lines, and is a good use of taxpayer funds as it would provide clean drinking water to approximately 30 existing homes that currently cannot tap into their current system.
Project: Hudson Water Transmission Line Project
Address: Nicholson Drive, Hudson, Ohio 44236
Amount Funded: $959,753
Project Description:The City of Hudson will use this funding to connect two major transmission mains within the City water system, and is a good use of taxpayer funding because it will improve the quality of residents' drinking water, provide increased fire protection, and connect nearby residents currently without access to the City's water system.
Project: New Franklin Portage Lakes State Park Water/Sewer Project
Address: 5611 Manchester Road, New Franklin, OH 44319
Amount Funded: $959,752
Project Description:This project will extend sewer and water from existing systems in the city approximately one mile to the Portage Lakes State Park, a 411-acre Ohio Division Natural Resources facility within New Franklin, where a $4 Million Dollar Visitors Center is planned. The route will also bring sewer and water to St. Luke Lutheran Home (a 71-bed senior center), the New Franklin Tudor House Events Center, and the adjoining lakefront/lakeside neighborhoods.
Project: North Canton Arrowhead Water Well
Address: Nicholson Drive, Hudson, Ohio 44236
Amount Funded: $500,000
Project Description:The City of North Canton will use this to establish an additional water source with lower chloride levels to combine with output from the North Canton Public Water System existing wells, in order to stabilize overall chloride levels in the water supply, and comply with Ohio Environmental Protection Agency regulations. This funding is a good use of taxpayer funds because it will provide residents of North Canton with access to safe drinking water with significantly reduced risk of chemical contamination.
Project: Silver Lake Sewer Separation Project
Address: Nicholson Drive, Hudson, Ohio 44236
Amount Funded: $904,000
Project Description:The Village of Silver Lake will use this funding to construct approximately 1,750 linear feet of new sanitary sewer and closure of the overflow into Silver Lake. This is a good use of taxpayer funds, as the project will protect Silver Lake from the elevated discharge of chemicals it is currently experiencing, including nitrates, phosphates, and other chemicals that are detrimental to that vicinity's water quality.