From taking on an old college campus and demolishing an old hotel to promoting ATVs and developing boat launches, the Oil Region Alliance of Business, Industry and Tourism had a whirlwind year in 2024, and the coming year doesn’t look any less eventful.
“We come in here every day, trying to make a better region,” ORA President and Chief Executive Officer John R. Phillips II said. “We keep that goal, trying to move the needle a little bit.”
As a nonprofit, federally designated administrator of the Oil Region National Heritage Area (ORNHA); designated by the state as Venango County’s official tourism promotion agency; and assigned the status of Rural Development Hub Organization, the ORA wears many hats.
In addition to tourism promotion and marketing of Venango County and the surrounding area, some of its activities include rehabilitation of contaminated abandoned sites (brownfields), marketing of industrial and commercial sites, pursuit of community development and revitalization, and preservation of cultural resources in the area.
Oil Region Venango Campus
One of the ORA initiatives that generated the most buzz in 2024 was its taking over management of Venango Campus from PennWest-Clarion, after the the PennWest branch campus closed at the end of the spring semester.
The ORA made the move to maintain a higher-education facility in the county, to protect the campus donors’ legacies, and to prevent the campus from falling into disrepair or from being sold or auctioned by the state, Phillips said at the time.
Phillips said last month that the deed of ownership will officially be transferred to the ORA on July 1. The ORA has been leasing the property since July 2024, as the state Legislature first had to approve the sale before being signed off by the governor.
The ORA has appealed for property tax reassessment on the property, now known as Oil Region Venango Campus, as the state-owned university paid no property taxes and the property has not been reassessed in many years.
While taking on the campus has been a challenge, Phillips said the state is scrutinizing what the ORA does with the property “to see, ‘Hey, is this a model we can replicate?’ Other communities have at-risk educational facilities.”
The ORA hired Seth Herrick in August as executive director of the campus — one of three new hires during the past year, which also included retired state Fish and Boat Commission officer Mark Kerr as part-time outdoor recreation program manager, and Raven Nespor, a former ORA intern, as project coordinator.
Activity has been bustling at the campus so far, as Venango Technology Center moved its adult licensed practical nursing program there in July. Oil City Vineyard Church and temporary offices for the Northwest Commission are other tenants, and Phillips said many student sports groups have been using the gymnasium. VTC also is looking to expand its adult programming at the campus.
During the fall, Arts Oil City held several artist events at the campus in partnership with other arts initiatives.
New signage has been placed at the campus and signage is planned to be updated across the street at the campus apartments, which the ORA also purchased in October and plans to rename “West End Village.”
The ORA has plans for several buildings on campus, and corporate trainings, community development, meeting space and private event space are all available at the campus, according to information from the ORA.
Other properties and brownfields
Near the end of 2024, the ORA purchased the Levi Building on Oil City’s North Side, which formerly housed Center and Elm Antiques and now houses the Oil City location of Amy’s Closet.
Meanwhile, the first-floor storefront of the recently beautified Downs Building on the opposite corner of the intersection is ready for tenants, and Phillips said this year the ORA will be “strategizing” what to do with the second and third floors.
The ORA is partnering with the Venango County Economic Development Authority on the rehabilitation of 100 Seneca, and with the Oil City Redevelopment Authority on the purchase and demolition of the blighted former Oil City Days Inn, although it owns neither of the properties.
For the site of the former Days Inn, which was demolished in the latter half of 2024, Phillips said the ORA, in collaboration with the Venango Area Chamber of Commerce, is “looking at the whole area as part of the riverfront and reimagining it.”
“A parking lot is not our vision for the property,” he said, in indirectly addressing community rumors. Rather, the ORA would like to see the property receive new development complementary to what is nearby, such as Justus Park.
The chamber is seeking public input for the future of Justus Park, and the ORA will look at the results.
“We’re going to be marketing the hotel site in 2025,” Phillips said. “We’re developing a list of developers and entities that we could approach.”
While the ORA would not want “just anyone” to take over some of the properties it currently owns, “we would not be opposed to transferring them to another developer, because that’s catalyzing. That would free us up to do other things,” Phillips said. “We need to make sure we are attractive to developers coming in.”
ORA Communications and Tourism Manager Emily Altomare said, “We’re not in the business of trying to be landlords, but we are in the business of trying to make sure development is ethically done; with historic preservation and environmentally friendly.”
The ORA will continue marketing industrial and other sites to developers in 2025, and the remediation of the former Fuchs Lubricant site in Emlenton is going to ramp up, Phillips said.
Last spring, the organization also received a nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the former Kraft Concrete and Dahlstrom salvage yard in Oil City, property it purchased in October 2022 to remediate.
Looking ahead to this year, Phillips said the ORA in its capacity as Rural Development Hub Organization plans to acquire the former J.M. Eagle plastics manufacturing facility in Franklin for remediation, part of an effort with the city of Franklin and other entities to improve the Third Ward area of the city.
Heritage
In 2024, the ORA completed the ORNHA Diversity Study and distributed copies to regional libraries and historical societies.
It also completed preservation plans for Grove Hill and Woodlawn cemeteries, and rehabilitated three porches and carpeted the first floor of the Oil Region Heritage Center, also known as the Scheide House, in Titusville.
As ORNHA administrator, the organization is working with third parties to develop a unified way-finding signage plan and interpretive plan for ORNHA programming.
This year’s plans include completing a list of historic properties and publicly available meeting and event spaces in the region, planning a new round of mini-grants for local nonprofits to do heritage and recreation projects, and installation of interpretive panel replacements in Emlenton and along the Allegheny Valley River Trail.
Erie-based artist Adam Stempka is being commissioned to create a gateway sculpture on Route 8, near the south entrance of Titusville, to replace the old and dangerously deteriorated wooden derrick that had stood there, Altomare said. The new sculpture will incorporate historic and natural symbols of the ORNHA.
Outdoor recreation
The ORA has continued to work on improving public access across local water trails, including continued work on unpowered boat launches in President and Cranberry townships, and design and amenity work at the Fisherman’s Cove access point.
The organization can provide technical assistance to local groups for waterway evaluation, planning and development, Altomare said.
The region’s waterways will see extra use in September when the final fishing tournament in the national Kayak Adventure Series will take place in the area around Franklin.
“Kayak fishing is exploding, and COVID was a big contributor,” Phillips said.
On land, the ORA continued to develop gaps on the Erie to Pittsburgh Trail and rehabilitated the Sportsman Bridge on the East Branch Trail, and it is providing technical assistance to the Oil Region ATV Association (ORATVA) to pursue opening designated roads to ATV use.
All the outdoor initiatives promote tourism, the second-largest economic driver in Pennsylvania behind agriculture, Phillips said. When people come to the area for recreation, “we see a direct connection between that and people moving here.”
The ORA will continue to promote tourism by supporting local events and marketing the area.
The Pennsylvania Tourism Office recently unveiled a new slogan for the state, “The Great American Getaway,” and as the county’s official tourism promotion agency, the ORA will also work in cooperation with the state office to receive funding and promote the Oil Region.
One of the ORA’s potential tourism plans could carry a particular historical significance, as the organization is actively in discussion with Norfolk-Southern railway to obtain the discontinued rail corridor from behind the former Days Inn site all the way to Siverly in Oil City — including the famed Wye Bridge, over which the last train traveled in February 2024.
The bridge, Phillips said, could be restored and made into a recreational asset for the riding of speeder cars and rail bikes, preserving the rails on the historic Y-shaped bridge. “There are only three of those in the country.”
Phillips said the ORA and its partners are “working very well together because we share a vision of what we want to do and where we want to go as a region.”
Though different stakeholders have “different ideas of how to get there,” he believes everyone involved is doing a good job of deciding which goals are reasonable and attainable; then working together on them.
“This is how communities move forward or lag behind,” Phillips said. “We have to come to a vision and move forward and agree on it.”
