ATHENS, Ohio — Although there are no outward signs of development at The Ridges, a public body of developers and representatives from Ohio University and Athens City Council has been working to secure a roughly 27-acre property transfer from the state.
The Ridges New Community Authority, which is intended to provide community oversight over development at The Ridges, met Monday, Feb. 2 for its annual organizational meeting. The group discussed possible next steps to prepare the site for development and updates on the process of securing state approval to transfer the property’s ownership from OU to developers.
Additionally, the group discussed efforts by the Athens-Hocking-Vinton Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services Board, also known as the 317 Board, to quickly ferry a rezoning process through Athens City Council in order to secure funding for new housing for its clients along Dairy Lane.
Praxia Partners plans to develop the 27 acres at The Ridges with hundreds of housing units, including senior housing, creative/artisan live-work space, commercial space, affordable housing for OU graduate students, and market-rate housing.
Additionally, OU intends to set aside 535 acres in a conservation easement with the Athens Conservancy to protect natural areas at The Ridges.
The university aims to complete the process to establish the conservation easement at around the same time the 27 acres officially transfers over to the Ridges New Community Authority, community authority member and OU Director of Real Estate James Kaufman said Monday.
“I just haven’t been in a position where I want to proceed with transferring the 535 acres into a conservation easement, until we’re ready to close on the whole transaction,” Kaufman said.
The State of Ohio Controlling Board signed off last summer on transferring the 27 acres intended for development. The university anticipated the Ohio Governor’s Office would sign off on its plans for transfer by the end of 2025.
Now, the university anticipates the property transfer will move forward in the second or third quarter of this year, according to a report presented Monday from the community authority Chairperson and Praxia Partners CEO Joe Recchie.
“It might not be a construction crane or you’re moving into a house, but there is a lot of work being done behind the scenes, and that is just part of developing or reactivating the space,” said Laura Recchie, community authority secretary and chief operating officer of Praxia Partners, said.
“When can I move in?”
At the meeting, community authority Vice Chairperson Chris Knisely said the most common question The Ridges New Community Authority gets from the public about the project is, “When can I buy? When can I move in?”
First available units will likely include housing for 317 Board clients, affordable housing units supported by the state’s Welcome Home Ohio program, and market-rate housing, and could be available for homebuyers as early as 2027, Joe Recchie said. However, he said to “put the asterisk” on that timeline, as the process may encounter delays.
Many planned developments at The Ridges may be significantly farther off.
Buildings 2, 3, and 4 at The Ridges, all intended for senior housing according to Joe Recchie’s Aug. 28, 2025, presentation to Athens City Council, have a “multi-layered, government-engaged timeline.”
“Those three buildings are, together, about 98,000 square feet, so it’s a pretty big building,” Joe Recchie said Monday. “It has a serious roof degradation, which is causing moisture in the building. … [The] buildings can be stabilized and kept in place for many years. These buildings are well built, but water is a significant challenge to these buildings.”
Replacing the roofs on buildings 2, 3, and 4 will cost an estimated $4 million, Joe Recchie said. As developers work on longer-term projects at The Ridges, though, “We can be busy with these other activities that produce housing in a timely fashion, and that would include age-friendly housing,” he said.
Christine Smith, an Athens resident interested in senior housing at The Ridges, told the community authority, “Save a space for me.”
Joe Recchie said developers are interested in working directly with seniors to create housing tailored to their needs near the intersection of Dairy Lane and Richland Avenue. He said interested seniors may get in touch with developers via the Praxia Partners website.
Moving forward on the 27-acre transfer
At the meeting, Joe Recchie told the Independent that the delay mainly resulted from the difficulty of conducting a “survey of what’s being transferred and what is not, what’s being transferred to whom, and how that all works,” to meet requirements of the Ohio Department of Administrative Services.
The group has completed a draft condominium survey and condominium declaration, significantly advancing that process.
Joe Recchie said he hoped to secure approval on the survey from the Athens County Auditor’s Office before seeking approval from the state.
However, Athens County Auditor Jill Davidson told the Independent that the developers’ request was outside of her office’s scope.
“They did ask us to kind of do some sort of a pre-approval on this project, and we sent that to our prosecutor’s office and said, ‘Is this something we can do?’ And the way I interpreted their response was that, that’s outside of our scope, that we would have to wait until it’s submitted and then we could review it,” Davidson said.
That will need to happen after developers receive the deed from the governor’s office, Davidson said.
After the deed is presented to the governor’s office, it “could be two weeks, could be 12 weeks,” before the transfer is approved, Joe Recchie said Monday. “It’s just when the governor gets to it,” he added.
Tight timeline for the 317 Board
The delay in obtaining approval on the transfer from the governor’s office has contributed to a problem for the 317 Board, which would build additional housing for its clients on Dairy Lane as part of the overall development plan at The Ridges.
Because of the delay, the 317 Board had to ask the planning commission to propose rezoning itself, which it has since done. The board also needed approval from The Ridges New Community Authority and OU to move forward; the board offered approval at Monday’s meeting. Also at that meeting, community authority member Kaufman said OU will support the 317 Board’s request.
The 317 Board, which supports individuals in recovery from addiction and mental illness, is seeking $2 million in grant funding from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to construct 15 housing units as permanent supportive housing for its clients, according to materials the group presented at the Jan. 21 Athens Planning Commission meeting.
Before the board can apply for the funding, Athens City Council must rezone the property on Dairy Lane by March 12. Currently, the vacant, undeveloped woodland property is zoned under educational institution, but it must be zoned as R-3, multi-family residential, to construct housing for 317 Board clients.
WOUB reported that the housing will comprise single-story, single-occupant homes, but because the homes will be built in clusters of three units sharing walls, like a triplex, the area must be zoned R-3.
The 317 Board is racing to get the property rezoned in time, with only a few days to spare, if Athens City Council approves on emergency the Athens Planning Commission’s recommendation to rezone. The council must hold a public hearing with a 30 days notice before it can approve rezoning.
Because of the snowstorm that followed the Jan. 21 planning commission meeting, the soonest the 317 Board could finalize rezoning is March 9 — just three days before its March 12 deadline. The board got into such a bind in part because it anticipated the 27-acre transfer would be approved by the end of 2025.
“The 317 Board intended to obtain title from [The Ridges New Community Authority] and its development partner once they received title to the property from the State of Ohio, then pursue any necessary rezoning and other land use approvals, as well as remaining the funding needs through [Ohio Housing Finance Agency],” the group said in a request for OU approval on rezoning, presented to the planning commission.
Had that process moved along as planned, “the 317 Board would have all steps completed in the conventional order and would [had] also plenty of time to prepare all necessary applications, approvals, rezonings, etc.,” the 317 Board’s request to OU said.
At the same time, as the process with the governor’s office was delayed, the Ohio Housing Finance Agency accelerated its program, making funding available in 2026, rather than 2027.
Public engagement
Athens City Council member Alan Swank, 4th Ward, attended Monday’s meeting and criticized The Ridges New Community Authority for what he described as inadequately informing the public of its work and its meetings.
In particular, Swank criticized the community authority for publicizing its Feb. 2 meeting only on a bulletin board outside the mayor’s office, with an erroneous date (Monday, Feb. 3, instead of Monday, Feb. 2).
“You bring up really good points,” Joe Recchie told Swank.
As a public body, the new community authority is required to comply with Ohio’s open meeting laws, which require the body to provide advance notice to the public of its meetings.
Swank said the group has inadequately informed Athens City Council of its work, too.
Athens Service-Safety Director Andy Stone, on the board of the New Community Authority, said he would work to keep the council more informed.
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