Neighborhoods

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

718 Cubic Yards of Debris Removed

114 New Clients Enrolled in Housing Counseling

46 Emergency Repairs

30 Vacant Houses Boarded

REVITALIZE

Tiffany Sokol confessed Wednesday that her favorite part of the newly renovated house at 900 Old Furnace Road is the restored porch.

 During this visit at least.

“I tell everyone a different part is my favorite every time we’re here,” said the housing director for Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. “There are lots of things I like about it, definitely.”

The city of Youngstown purchased the historic property for $1 from Mill Creek MetroParks in July 2021 and subsequently transferred it to YNDC to renovate and sell. YNDC recently completed three months of renovations to the house and placed it on the market Tuesday for $250,000.

Roughly a century and a half old, the house is definitely the oldest property that YNDC has renovated and one of the most historically significant, Sokol said.

Built sometime between 1860 and 1874 by Robert and Isabelle Hamilton, the property was purchased by Mill Creek MetroParks in the 1890s and used as a YMCA clubhouse before being used as the park superintendent’s residence through the 1990s. It was unoccupied for about 20 years before YNDC acquired it, with the park using it for storage for a time.

The restored house has about 2,200 square feet of living space, excluding the basement, she said.

To see the full story from The Business Journal, click here.

To see the full story from WFMJ, click here.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation has renovated one of the city’s oldest houses and it’s now up for sale.

The former Mill Creek Park Superintendent’s house got a renovation of over $100,000.

The original house on Old Furnace Road was built between 1860 and 1874 with Mill Creek Park just across the street.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.

For Anthony Appugliese, having stepped inside of a 19th century historic home likely felt as much like a reunion as a one-time showing. 

“The last time I was in this house, I was 9 and selling candy bars for school,” Appugliese, 59, of Poland, fondly recalled.

Sweetening things a bit for him was an open house Wednesday at the residence next to Mill Creek Park at 900 Old Furnace Road, which underwent several months of extensive renovations and upgrades.

Hosting the 90-minute gathering was the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp., which partnered with the park and the city of Youngstown.

A steady flow of foot traffic visited the two-story Victorian home that was placed on the market Tuesday. The asking price is $250,000.

Accompanying Appugliese was his mother, Renate, who, with her husband, Andrew, have lived across the street from the historic home since 1971. Anthony Appugliese recalled that the house had been renovated in the 1980s, and that a large room and double-car garage were added. Before that, the garage was down the hill in the park, he remembered.

“They put a lot of money into it, possibly $60,000,” Appugliese said.

Tiffany Sokol, YNDC’s housing director, noted that Robert and Isabelle Hamilton built the home between 1860 and 1874 before the park bought it around 1890. It had been used as a YMCA clubhouse as well as the Mill Creek Park superintendent’s residence for many years. After that, the home sat vacant for nearly 20 years, she explained.

To see the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

To the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp., which renovated, upgraded and ultimately saved a beautiful, 19th century historic home on Old Furnace Road next to Mill Creek Park.

It’s the first home motorists see as they ascend the hill from nearby Pioneer Pavilion. The two-story Victorian home is now on the market. Without YNDC’s involvement, the historic home likely would have been lost. Now we hope it will be purchased as a residence by someone who will devote the needed love and care to preserve it well into the future.

To see the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

Adam Wagner is a Grass Cutting and Clean Up Team Member for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. Adam collaborates with a team of professional and labor staff in the implementation of large scale grass cutting and clean up of vacant homes, boarding of vacant housing, vacant lot management, basic construction, and other field and maintenance projects to improve the quality of life in strategic Youngstown neighborhoods.

The city of East Liverpool is starting a new blight remediation project. Officials hope this will continue the city’s revitalization.

Demolition took place Monday morning at a house that is one of 16 abandoned homes on Erie Street. It’s also one of 450 abandoned homes in East Liverpool, according to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC).

A lot of work is still to be done with demolishing old homes, but officials say this is a step forward for the city.

The demolition was the start of a blight remediation and demolition project in East Liverpool. Several officials witnessed the demolition of the home on Erie Street — one of many that are expected to be torn down.

“They’re not all homes where we can just come in and foreclose on someone. We don’t want to do that, but we want to clean up the neighborhood so that the people that do want to live here have a nice place to live,” said Bryan Blakeman, treasurer for Columbiana County.

Vito Abruzzino, prosecuting attorney for Columbiana County, says they can be a threat to the community.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.

When the Foster Theatre opened in 1938, it was the second movie theater on Youngstown’s South Side.

Its arrival made headlines in Hollywood, with studio heads like the Warner Brothers even writing to congratulate the theater’s president, Joseph Shagrin Sr. Those days were long gone by the time I was old enough to realize that the Foster Theatre wasn’t like the movie theaters we drove elsewhere to patronize.

It now stands as the last movie theater on the South Side and one of the last remaining landmarks of the once bustling Fosterville district. Until it was purchased by YNDC in 2021, the theater also had the distinction of being one of only 35 remaining adult theaters in the country.

Now, far be it for me to judge or malign the adult industry, but one thing that has held about adult theaters since they emerged in shared public spaces in the late 1960s is that they tend to be a little seedy.

Growing up in the 1990s, it felt as though every trip down Glenwood Avenue happened in the shadow of the theater. This hulking building takes up an amount of space commensurate with its long-lost status. The former glamorous movie house was an eyesore when I was old enough to notice it. And I had been sufficiently warned about it without being given details beyond my pay grade as a kid.

What I did realize, however, was that this particular building was constantly patronized by people who did not live in my community. An interesting thing happens when transient visitors frequent a neighborhood in transition or disrepair: They treat the area and its people in ways they would never consider on their side of town. Of course, this is not always the case. But we’re talking about Glenwood in the 1990s.

To see the full story from Mahoning Matters, click here.

The owner of Voyager Specialty Coffee & Teas acknowledged he is being optimistic when he says that Voyager and his new Trek Coffeehouse will be operating in new locations in December.

But Levi Smith of Canfield said he is also “somewhat of a realist. So I keep telling people winter, because in Ohio that’s a six-month time period.”

To see the full story from The Business Journal, click here.