PAULDING– After years of hope, dreams and rumors, an investment team has purchased property and started the development of a Taco Bell restaurant in Paulding County. The groundbreaking took place on Tuesday with the previous property owner, franchise owners, developers, the Village of Paulding, the Paulding County Economic Development office and many hungry onlookers on hand.
Black River Bells is the group that purchased the property from local businessman Jayson Dangler for development. The General Contractor for the project is Midwest Contracting from Holland, Ohio. The site work bid was won locally by Kauser Excavating. The group hopes to have the site work completed and a building started immediately. The whole project is looking to complete by the end of the year.
In January 2022, local businessman Jayson Dangler purchased the open lot located at 863 N. Williams Street, between the Premier Bank and Bureau of Motor Vehicles Plaza. Immediately after that purchase, Dangler contacted Tim Copsey at the Paulding County Economic Development office. Dangler shared that he employs many in the county and there was a need for more food options locally. Dangler challenged Copsey to find a group that would bring a new food option to this lot.
“Jayson and I have had some great business conversations in the past and he has helped us with other successful projects. I knew he was pretty adamant about making this project work when he came to us, so we went to work right away on the opportunity,” stated Copsey. “For over a year we had a lot of conversation with a lot of franchises, but once we finally got traction with the Black River Bells investment group we connected them with Jayson and we let them take the negotiating from there. We are so thankful they got this across the finish line.”
The project took quite a while to develop. The Paulding Village council viewed, and was asked to approve preliminary drawings, months ago. Since then, many legal hurdles and approvals had to be overcome, all of which slowed the project down.
Now that the project is underway, the rumors can be put to rest that this was just another dangling carrot with no end project. Copsey followed up, “This project has been on the radar in Paulding County for as long as I can remember. There are still files from way back in our office. Even as this project delayed, people commented that once again it was all just a farce. It is just reassuring to know that if we are going to build and move Paulding County forward, it is going to take persistence, but also patience, and we can still win. In today’s society patience isn’t always welcome but we are glad in this case it worked out.”
Dangler closed out the day noting, “I am glad to see this deal finally get done. I would like to thank Tim and everyone at the Economic Development office for their hard work on this.”
“Live Mas”.
