Financial straits in the village of Lakemore – in a state-ordered fiscal emergency for more than a year – have pushed officials to find creative ways out of a $1.092 million general fund deficit.Officials have said the money woes have been caused by several factors, including a decade of overspending by previous administrations and the closing of Edwin Shaw Hospital in 2009. In April, the village asked the Ohio Department of Development for a municipal corporation “Situational Distress” designation because of the loss of revenue from jobs at the former rehabilitation center.The specification, shared by only a handful of communities across the state, will make the community appear more appealing in its applications for grants from the Clean Ohio Assistance Fund to find and remove asbestos in the former hospital, which was built in 1915. “The goal is to prepare the property for future reuse, so it will be a benefit to the village,” said Neal Hess, a Springfield Township resident who has volunteered to help the village get the designation and has experience in writing grant proposals. The classification will give the village an advantage in grant requests, said state Department of Development spokeswoman Bethany McCorkle.“A community with a distressed designation gets preferential treatment for their grant applications,” McCorkle said. “Obviously, we prefer to give [grants] to those first.”In the application, made to James Leftwich, director of the Department of Development, council President Rick Justice cited the loss of 271 jobs as an “extremely significant loss for a community of less than 3,000.” Leftwich approved the request and determined Lakemore to be a “priority investment area.”Only nine other communities and Washington County in southeastern Ohio share the designation..Summit County owns the 100-acre hospital property, which was built as a tuberculosis sanitarium. Subsequent uses include housing for abused and neglected children as well as for rehabilitation.Akron General Health System acquired Edwin Shaw’s operations from Summit County in 2005 and had been leasing the facility until plans for a permanent home could be finalized. The health system moved Edwin Shaw from Lakemore to a portion of a nursing home in Cuyahoga Falls about two years ago.The Challenger Golf Course, a handicap golf facility, still operates on the grounds.Hess, a member of the Springfield school board, said the idea for requesting the designation was a collaboration among Justice, Summit County Executive Russ Pry and himself. “We were brainstorming ideas. I’d heard about the brownfield grants and we started looking into it,” Hess said. He said he worked with Justice to submit the necessary paperwork.“Brownfields” are defined by the state as abandoned, idled or underused properties where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by possible contamination.In the village’s application to the state, Justice cited recent Census Bureau estimates that Lakemore lags far behind the rest of the county and state in socioeconomic standards. Current per capita income is $18,000, less than half that of the county and half the state average. Data show that more than 20 percent of Lakemore residents are living in poverty, as opposed to 13.3 percent of Ohio residents and 12.5 percent of Summit County residents, Justice said.“We are going to get very aggressive at looking for new economic development opportunities and for grant opportunities to promote those efforts,” Justice said in a prepared statement.The designation puts the village in a favorable position to get up to $300,000 in Clean Ohio Assistance funds to assess the former hospital for contaminants. A second grant for a Clean Ohio Brownfield Fund grant “could provide up to $3 million to remove asbestos, demolish structures on the property that are not reusable, and provide for some infrastructure and utility improvements that would be appealing to a new developer or employer,” Hess said.A previous study authorized by the county recommended further testing to determine the amount of asbestos in the building. No other major contamination problems have been found, Justice said.County Executive Pry applauded the proactive approach in obtaining the designation and said the county is “committed to finding a new and improved use for the Edwin Shaw property.” He also pledged to “work with Lakemore officials to seek ways to redevelop the property in order to bring jobs to Lakemore and improve Lakemore’s financial situation.”The village hopes to submit its grant application for an environmental assessment of the building this month and should know by the end of the year whether the grant is approved. Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.