Downtown Youngstown Bustling with Projects

Reprinted with permission from The Business Journal

Downtown Youngstown Bustling with Projects

July 4, 2008
9:18 a.m.

By Dan O’Brien

Workers prepare scaffolding for Realty Towers project.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The “Road Closed” signs, earthmovers, backhoes and bulldozers, construction fences, bright orange cones, and scaffolding wrapped around downtown buildings strike some as aesthetic and logistical nuisances.

To others, they’re welcome and tangible signs that the central business district continues to draw interest -- and dollars -- on its path to revitalization.

“We’re excited to be on the West End, where there’s a lot of activity,” said Paul Hagman, a principal of Sweet Jenny Land Co. and an associate at Ronald Cornell Faniro Architects Inc. “All of our neighbors here have been very welcoming.”

A decade ago, the West End was the poster child for urban blight. Today, it’s enjoying a commercial and aesthetic renaissance, thanks to investors such as Sweet Jenny.

Last year, Sweet Jenny bought the landmark John R. Davis building on West Federal Street from the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp. Over the last eight months, the company has spent nearly a half million dollars to renovate the structure and relocate the Faniro firm to its new offices there.

Earlier this week Faniro moved into the second floor of the Davis Building from the Ohio One Building, where it was a tenant 19 years. The first floor is open for lease; Hagman lives in an apartment on the third.

“We did this with our own money,” Hagman said. “We’re now in a position where we feel we can actively participate in the renovation of downtown.”

Sweet Jenny’s development is one of several projects under way in the central business district. Since 2000, more than $100 million has been spent on or committed to new projects -- most funded by public sources -- that are either finished or in various stages of development in or near the downtown.

Among these projects over the last decade were a slew of new government buildings: the George V. Voinovich Government Building, the Mahoning County Children Services Board Building, the Ohio 7th District Court of Appeals courthouse, and the Nathaniel R. Jones Federal Building and Court House for the U.S. Northern District of Ohio.

In addition, infrastructure improvements such as the reopening of Federal Street to through traffic played an important role in changing the landscape of downtown.

And, downtown investment numbers were clearly boosted in 2005 with the completion of the $45 million Chevrolet Centre – the majority of which was funded through a $26.8 million federal grant.

Meantime, new restaurants, taverns, and entertainment venues, such as the expansion of the DeYor Peforming Arts Center two years ago, helped resurrect the once-dormant central business district as a premier nightspot.

“We’ve got enough to keep us busy here,” said T. Sharon Woodberry, city economic development director.

Projects such as the Frangos Group’s $7 million renovation of the Realty Towers building into upscale condominiums has finally begun, while a host of other infrastructure and small-business development is also evident downtown.

Woodberry reports that a new tenant for the food court at 20 Federal Place should be arriving soon, and Denise Powell, president of James & Weaver office furniture, is performing renovation work on a building that once served as storage for a downtown dentist. “She’s well under way for the improvements she needs to do,” Woodberry noted. “Now, she’s looking to secure a tenant for that building.”

Other projects completed this year include the $5.8 million Taft Technology Center and the Rosetta Stone Café, Woodberry said. Both projects received help from the city.

Mahoning County’s $5.3 million rehabilitation of the Fifth Avenue Bridge, scheduled to wrap up this November, should improve the flow of traffic into and out of downtown. Simultaneously, work on the $500,000 reconfiguration of West Federal Street is moving along and workers believe the new brickwork that will line the sidewalks could be finished within two weeks.

Another project the city supported through its incentives programs is the Lemon Grove, a coffee shop and bistro slated to open along West Federal Street.

Entrepreneur Jacob Harver said he is putting about $100,000 of his own capital at risk to renovate a building and start the new shop next door to Imbibe, a nightclub that opened three years ago.

“Hopefully, in the next two months we’ll be open,” he said. Harver said the café will feature a variety of artistic performances that include live music, one-act plays and other forms of entertainment. “It’s going to have a more mellow atmosphere than other bars or clubs in the downtown,” he says.

Workers were busy renovating portions of the building Wednesday. Harver intends is to strip off what he describes as the “wretched tile” from the front of the building and restore the brick façade.

“We need a place that reflects the atmosphere of downtown Youngstown,” he said. “We’re working in concert with other clubs to create a downtown community – that’s the main reason.”

And, the attraction of downtown prompted the Mahoning Valley Historical Society to purchase the Harry Burt/Ross Radio Building on West Federal and convert the three-story structure into a new Mahoning Valley History Center.

The building is a piece of Youngstown and American history because it is where the Good Humor Bar – vanilla ice cream on a stick dipped in chocolate – was invented during the 1920s.

Still, downtown has seen its share of challenges in recent weeks.

About a month ago, downtown’s largest landlord, Lou Frangos, president of The Frangos Group, approved a plan to remove some 500 windows from the 12-story Stambaugh Building. As workers were removing a window from the ninth floor, a pane of glass fell and shattered on East Federal Street, prompting the city to place a stop-work order on the project and close that segment of the thoroughfare for public safety.

As a result, the downtown landmark sat blighted and exposed to deterioration from the elements.

The city then forced Frangos to resecure the 500 windows that had been removed. Last Friday, workers began to reinstall them and by Thursday had nearly finished the side of the building that faces East Federal Street.

Frangos noted the window replacement is proceeding on schedule, as are his other projects.

Workers this week began tearing off portions of the roof of Realty Towers – the start of his $7 million project to convert the landmark office building into upscale apartments.

“They’re going like gangbusters now,” Frangos said.

Frangos, a Cleveland-based investor who controls a large parking operation in that city and Youngstown, has also said he has plans to rehabilitate the Wick Building on Federal Street and the Erie Terminal Building on Commerce Street by turning them into residences.

The Erie Terminal project, he noted, would be geared toward housing students who attend Youngstown State University, thus helping to forge a stronger link with the central business district and YSU.

Strengthening the link between downtown and YSU is one justification for the university’s decision to build its $34.3 million Williamson College of Business Administration in a section just north of the central business district.

Demolition work on five buildings to make way for the new business school has begun. Workers started to remove asbestos from the buildings last week. The new business school is expected to open by the fall semester of 2010.