(Photo by Gage Vota) State and local officials broke ground Friday on the new Appalachian ECOTONE riverfront amphitheater and trails on Ohio 7 in Sardis. From left: James McKeegan, vice president of Grae-Con; Matt Brake, Swiss Valley Associates engineer; Graham Ferry, Mannik-Smith Group engineering manager; Gabe Hays, Smith Group principal landscape architect; Mick Schumacher, Monroe County commissioner; John Carey, Office of Appalachia Director; Monroe County Treasurer Taylor Abbott; Monroe County Commissioner Diane Burkhart; Buckeye Hills Regional Council Director Chasity Schmelzenbach; and Jessica Keeton Ironton-Lawrence County Area Community Action Organization assistant director of community development.

SARDIS — State and local officials broke ground Friday on the $4.4 million amphitheater and walking trail in Monroe County.

The Appalachian ECOTONE riverfront amphitheater and trails is part of the Appalachian Community Grant Program, a $500 million initiative by Gov. Mike DeWine to encourage development in the Appalachian region. A groundbreaking for the project to be located at 37800 Ohio 7 in Sardis was held Friday morning.

“There’s projects similar to this taking place all along the Ohio River, all the way up to the northern most part, all the way down to Cincinnati and New Richmond,” John Carey, director of the Ohio Governor’s Office of Appalachia, said. “This amphitheater will be a great asset for the community. Sardis and Monroe County is a beautiful community, so we want other people to know that, and we want folks that live in the area to also be able to enjoy it.”

DeWine wanted to attract travelers to the area and stimulate its economy, Carey said.

“We’re always working on water, sewer, and broadband, and all those things we still need, and are still working on those. But we wanted to do something different that would be transformative for the region,” Carey said. “So while we’re putting water and sewer lines in the ground, it doesn’t help us if our downtowns are falling down.”

(Photo by Gage Vota) Monroe County Commissioner Mick Schumacher expresses his excitement for the groundbreaking of the Appalachian ECOTONE riverfront amphitheater and trails on Friday. The $4.4 million project is located on Ohio 7 in Sardis.

A delighted Monroe County Commissioner Mick Schumacher said half the funds for the project will be used to purchase the property and create the amphitheater and walking trails.

“The amphitheater was kind of the cherry on the top. Well, now we’re going to be building a cake under our cherry, because the amphitheater and the trails were awarded the funding,” Schumacher said.

The county leveraged money with a Clean Ohio Trail Grant through the Ohio Department of National Resources to purchase the wetlands to develop the walking trails. The grant paid for 75% of the wetlands and an Ohio Department of Transportation Ohio Scenic Byway grant will pay for the other 25%, Schumacher said.

“It’s very rare that you get opportunities like this,” he said. “It was a lot of work, I won’t kid you, because they kept moving the goalpost. This is federal money, and it had to fall through those federal guidelines, which sometimes they’d say, ‘Oh, we can’t do it that way, because we’ve got to follow these guidelines,’ so we’d have to revamp.”

The project is required to be completed by Oct. 30, 2026, according to the Appalachian Community Grant Program.

(Photo by Gage Vota) John Carey, director of the Office of Appalachia, speaks at a groundbreaking for the new Appalachian ECOTONE riverfront amphitheater and trails in Sardis where he said a goal of the Appalachian Community Grant Program is to attract travelers to come to Appalachian communities in Ohio.