The former rest area buildings were closed in 2024 and demolished by early 2025 and Ohio Department of Transportation officials said they are scheduled to re-open in their new structures by the end of this summer as part of an estimated $16 million project.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced the statewide project in 2023, with plans to update about three dozen of Ohio’s 80-plus rest areas along major highways.
Matt Bruning, spokesman for ODOT, told the Journal-News, north and southbound highway rest stops are both the same size – 6,812 square feet each. This includes the porch area around the front and sides of each building.
Expanded truck parking for the busy highway stretch of the near-middle point between Cincinnati and Dayton is being expanded, said Bruning.
“We are also more than doubling the truck parking capacity at the Butler County rest areas – going from 20 to 45 spaces at each site. The northbound site will include an additional three spaces to allow law enforcement a safe place to perform truck inspections,” said Bruning.
“Expanded truck parking is something we try to do at all our re-imagined rest areas,” he said referencing DeWine’s 2023 announcement to add 1,400 more truck parking spaces statewide to help keep truck drivers and motorists safe.
A common sight each evening with the previous rest stops was dozens of trucks without parking spaces and forced to park on the highway shoulder area at the entrance and exit ramps to the grounds.
Officials with the Ohio Trucking Association have been involved in the re-envisioned rest area planning from the beginning, saying additional truck parking space has been a huge issue — something that’s visible to both truckers, or nighttime drivers who see trucks stretching down the entrance and exit ramps of existing rest areas as drivers try to sleep.
Each building will include rest rooms, vending machines, a universal changing station for people with disabilities and their caregivers. As is the case with all the re-imagined rest areas, each site also features local attractions such as historical sites, museums, and parks to give people ideas about what they can see just down the road, he said.
Outside there will be picnic tables, a Storybook Trail (where people can read a book on panels down a path), a dog walking path, rocking chairs, Ohio native plants, trees and shrubs.
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