PARKERSBURG – Two river cities are cooperating in a promotion aimed at improving the overall community and the quality of life.

Vienna and Parkersburg are collaborating in Frontier Communications’ America’s Best Communities competition, a multi-year contest which at its conclusion will award $10 million to communities with the best plans for economic development and improved quality of life.

“We have a great story to tell here and we have a great opportunity,” said Jill Parsons, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley.

Deadline for the initial applications was Wednesday. Communities in the 27 states served by Frontier Communications are eligible.

Frontier said 138 teams representing 347 communities have submitted an application, which will go through an eligibility screening then go to the judges.

Up to 50 quarterfinalists will be announced on April 29 and will receive $35,000 from Frontier to develop the community revitalization plans, which will require a $15,000 local match, Frontier said. Frontier will match the quarterfinalists with a mentoring company which will provide another $15,000 to the quarterfinalists.

Up to 15 semifinalists will be selected Jan. 13, 2016, and up to eight finalists will be chosen on April 15, 2016. The eight finalists will get $100,000 to implement their plan during an 11-month period and the announcement of the grand prize winners will be in April 2017. The winner will receive $3 million, second place $2 million and third place $1 million.

The money will be used to implement the improvement plan.

“If we worked together, we thought our chances would be better of getting that award,” said Vienna Mayor Randy Rapp, a member of the initial planning committee.

While the planners are unsure what project can be done, the discussions have been how it will benefit Vienna and Parkersburg, said Rickie Yeager, municipal development director for the city of Parkersburg.

The project could be bicycle trails, address housing needs or provide more and improve the amenities that make the area a nice place to live, he said.

Bicycle trails these days are big, too, Rapp said. Perhaps the project could lead to connecting all the cities in the area with a bike trail, he said.

“We can do a lot of things with this money,” Rapp said.

It could be a business incubator to encourage entrepreneurship or a plan to address the challenges facing the communities, such as the lack of developable land or affordable housing, Parsons said.

On the initial planning committee are Parsons, Yeager, Rapp, Parkersburg Mayor Bob Newell, Vienna Development Director Paul Thornton and Jim Spanner, publisher of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

Separate proposals from Parkersburg and Vienna in competition with each other would not have been advantageous, Thornton said.

Cooperation will become more important among all the communities if development proceeds with the proposed ethane cracker plant in Wood County, Thornton said. The project will be in the billions of dollars, a scale never before seen in West Virginia, he said.

“For the Mid-Ohio Valley to be successful, Parkersburg, Vienna and Williamstown, we need to be working together,” Thornton said. “It was very clear at the beginning that we needed to partner up on this thing.”

The competition, announced in January, was conceived by Frontier Communications and is sponsored by DISH Network and CoBank. Besides funding the economic development opportunity, the competition also will share best practices and great ideas for progress among all the communities that enter, the company said.