Medina considers what to name three roads at Business Park

Photos by Tom Rivers: This road in the Medina Business Park goes between the Cobblestone Inn & Suites on the east side and Pride Pak on the west. The road is currently unnamed. The Village Board is considering naming it Owen’s Way in honor of Owen Toale, a former village trustee, deputy mayor and local newspaper publisher. The board is open to other possibilities for naming the road.

MEDINA – The Village Board is considering how to name three roads in the Medina Business Park, whether those street names should honor people who helped shape the community or instead be more generic and just state “Commerce Way.”

One of the three roads will likely be named for Pride Pak, a Canadian company that built a vegetable processing facility at the park in 2016. There already is a sign declaring the small street “Pride Pak Road.” That street could eventually extend farther back into the business park.

Medina Mayor Mike Sidari said Pride Pak Road was never officially formalized by a village resolution. He would prefer it to be “Pride Pak Way” to be consistent with Marcia Tuohey Way, a road leading into the business park off Bates Road.

Gabrielle Barone, vice president of business development for the Orleans Economic Development Agency, said the understanding when Pride Pak came to Medina was the road would carry the Pride Pak name.

Pride Pak Road which leads to the Pride Pak vegetable processing facility hasn’t been officially named in a formal resolution by the Medina Village Board. The board is considering making it “Pride Pak Way” to stay consistent with the naming for other roads in the Medina Business Park. Marcia Tuohey Way is a road leading into the park off Bates Road.

Village Board members wondered if that name should stay if Pride Pak changed ownership and there was a different name for the facility. In that case, the road name could always be modified, board members said. Pride Pak lists the address of its Medina business as 11531 Maple Ridge Rd.

The names for the two other roads leading into the park from Maple Ridge are very much open-ended with no expectations from a business for an official name.

Village Board members are considering “Owen’s Way” for the roadway between Pride Pak and Cobblestone Inn & Suites. Owen Toale retired from the Village Board last March after 12 years, including several years as the deputy mayor. He also was publisher of the former Journal-Register newspaper and has been an active volunteer with the veterans’ van service that takes veterans to medical appointments.

Village Trustee Tim Elliott said he appreciates Toale’s service to the community, but Elliott wants to hear suggestions from the Planning Board and Village Historian Todd Bensley. Elliott would prefer names with deeper historical roots.

Courtesy of Orleans EDA: This map from the Orleans Economic Development shows three roads to the Medina Business Park along Maple Ridge Road that need official names. There is a road on the west side of Pride Pak, then one in between Pride Pak and the hotel, and then another road in between Takeform and BMP.

The next road, the short street between Takeform and BMP, could be Commerce Way, but village officials are open to suggestions.

They heard ideas from the crowd on Monday evening: John Kennedy Way for a Medina mayor in the 1960s, Charles Howard for a Medina native who started a Santa Claus school in Albion, Medal of Honor recipient Forrest Vosler from Lyndonville, the Sawyer family who were influential in the ethanol plant in Medina, and Medal of Honor recipient John Butts of Medina.

Mayor Sidari said the board is open to more ideas for naming the street names.