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Sewage issue delays plan to build 2 hotels near Claysville

3 min read
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Someday, there may be rooms at the inns outside Claysville. But for the near future, there won’t be any inns.

The lack of sufficient sewage capacity has delayed plans to build two hotels and a family-style restaurant off the Claysville exit off Interstate 70.

Donegal Township supervisors this spring approved construction of a three-story, 80-room hotel, to be followed by development of another inn with the same dimensions.

Township supervisor Doug Teagarden said last week a hotelier hadn’t been selected for either building. “We’re looking at a number of brand names,” Teagarden said.

The three new businesses are to go up on 10 acres off Route 40, across from Xtreme Cycle Outlet. They likely would energize the Claysville area, providing jobs, revenue and tax dollars.

“We’re sort of optimistic, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be quick to develop – or cheap,” Teagarden said. “This interests us because we need something like this.”

Earth has been moved and a driveway has been built on the site. Teagarden added that construction of the first hotel was to have started by now and been completed by the end of 2013.

“We were ready to go, but there was no way to treat the sewage,” he lamented.

Pennsylvania American Water Co. operates the Claysville Wastewater Treatment plant. PAWC spokeswoman Josephine Posti said last week the hotel project “would exceed our capacity for wastewater,” but is still alive.

“I think both sides are looking at trying to define what the alternatives are,” Posti said. “We are doing some investigation on developing a plant and the developer is looking at some possibilities, maybe scaling back or changing the plans.”

Perry Monpara is the developer. Monpara, who got into the hotel industry only a year ago, owns National Rubber, a specialty rubber manufacturer.

He is a partner in a Microtel hotel being built off Racetrack Road in Chartiers Township with Tejas Gosai, his father, Kam Gosai, and Sujay Patel.

Teagarden said Monpara and a representative of the engineering firm, HMT and Associates Inc. of Canonsburg, have regularly attended supervisors meetings over the past year.

The potential of this enterprise, Teagarden said, is why the supervisors came up with an economic incentive to draw the project there. They drafted and passed an ordinance creating a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Act district for the 10-acre site.

The McGuffey school board and Washington County approved the ordinance as well.

This LERTA is for five years and absolves the developer of tax liability for the first year. It then requires 20 percent tax payment the second, 40 in the third, 60 in the fourth and 80 percent in the fifth.

For now, though, the hotel-restaurant project is dormant. Donegal officials, oil and gas employees, job seekers and the average traveler would like to see its revival – instead of seeing barren earth and rockpiles on the site.

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