Butler County Finance Authority outlines tools to spur redevelopment; Middletown council asks staff to explore partnership

Joshua Smith, director of the Butler County Finance Authority (formerly Butler County Port Authority), outlined the authority’s strategic focus and several financing tools aimed at driving redevelopment and economic resilience across Butler County.

Smith described a jobs and investment bond fund, a resilience revolving loan fund aimed at qualified census tracts (first-loss gap financing to attract traditional bank lending), and an Ignite Butler pre-development grant program to pay for environmental and preliminary work that makes sites “real-estate ready.” He said the jobs and investment bond fund has policy and procedures in place and that the Hamilton city government has committed $1 million toward the fund; Smith said he expects the fund to be operational by late spring.

Councilmembers asked how the authority would balance work across older industrial cities (Hamilton, Middletown, Fairfield, Oxford) and newer township development in Liberty and Westchester. Smith said the authority plans to pursue a mix of capital leases, conduit financing and targeted gap funding to support both adaptive reuse in older areas and traditional new-development projects.

Council asked staff to work with Joshua Smith to outline a possible partnership, including organizational structure, financial interaction with existing local port authorities, and a timeline for cooperation. Council directed staff to prepare a proposal to return to the council in February for discussion.