Neighborhoods

Congressman Tim Ryan today announces $420,000 for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Community Economic Development Opportunity for the YNDC REVITALIZE project.

Since its inception, the REVITALIZE project uses effective strategies developed by YNDC to stabilize neighborhoods through strategic reinvestment. Repurposing vacant property and engaging and employing residents in the process have created dozens of jobs and have turned formerly distressed neighborhoods into communities where opportunity and choice now exist. 'Over the last five years, this project has proven to be effective in addressing our vacant property crisis. Through this funding, YNDC will be able to continue to repurpose vacant property, strengthen the housing market and improve quality of life in neighborhoods across Youngstown - all while creating jobs in the Valley,' said Congressman Ryan. 'I applaud YNDC and its partners for their hard work and commitment to improving our community - I stand ready to do everything in my power to continue bringing these types of federal resources back home.' In April of 2015, Congressman Ryan voiced his support for this program and urged the Department of Health and Human Services to give this project strong consideration and to approve this funding.

To view the full coverage, click here.

Mahoning Avenue is alive.

A woman at the Mahoning Avenue Better Block event chalks her vision for a revitalized Garden District Neighborhood.

Crowds line sidewalks adorned with benches and greenery. Children skateboard along freshly painted bike lanes. People gather around pop-up shops and file in and out of abandoned storefronts, repurposed as art galleries. The sounds of a string quartet and a few guitarists reverberate down the street.

It represents a vision of the past, when Mahoning Avenue was a vital commercial corridor, and a brief glimpse into a brighter future.

“That’s the core concept of Better Block — a demonstration of what’s possible,” Ian Beniston, executive director of Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, said.

YNDC organized Saturday’s Mahoning Avenue Better Block and has two more on its slate this fall. Better Blocks are grassroots events intent on helping citizens recognize the potential of vibrant, walkable and mixed-use neighborhood centers.

“If longer term efforts were to take hold, this is what’s possible,” Beniston said.

He said part of Better Blocks is just getting people out on the street and showing that if you can create a critical mass, good things will happen.

Last year, YNDC started a farmer’s market in the Idora neighborhood. Beniston said it provides the neighborhood with healthy food access, but it also gets people engaging with the community in a productive way.

“It’s almost like what’s happening downtown,” Beniston said. “People are attracted there just because there are people out on the street going from place to place, and you see that in other cities too.”

BEGINNING TO SEE THE BLIGHT

The campus of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation on Canfield Road in the Idora neighborhood.

YNDC’s offices occupy an old farmhouse on Canfield Road in the Idora neighborhood — just off Glenwood Avenue and a short walk from Lanterman’s Mill. Greenhouses surrounding the offices comprise Iron Roots Urban Farm. The iconic Revitalize van sits out front urging passersby to stand up and fight blight.

Beniston has worked for YNDC since its formation in 2009, first as its deputy director and now, for just over a year, as executive director.

Their work began in Idora. Beniston said they noticed that people were buying houses on the West Side of Mill Creek Park as soon as they went on sale, but that wasn’t happening on the East Side along Glenwood. So YNDC went to work with the goal of stabilizing the housing stock, focused on acquiring and rehabilitating some vacant homes, demolishing others and boarding up the rest.

“What we’re doing here isn’t something that’s groundbreaking,” Beniston said. “It’s not something that’s not been done here and in other places.”

The difference between what YNDC is doing and previous stabilization efforts is the scale of their work.

“Historically, the city’s boarded up a couple dozen homes per year. We’ve boarded up 600 in the past 12 months. Same thing with the grass cutting,” Beniston said. “It’s basic stuff.”

Now YNDC operates in all seven wards of the city. They’ve demolished more than 150 homes in partnership with the city and the Mahoning County Land Bank. They’ve rehabbed more than 200 blighted houses and boarded up more than 750 more. They’ve repurposed more than 300 vacant lots and cleaned up and cut grass at more than 3,000 others.

They’ve developed several neighborhood action plans with neighborhood action teams in place to assist with implementation. They’ve targeted neighborhoods like Brownlee Woods, Crandall Park and the Garden District — where last weekend’s Better Block was held.

Beniston said they employ a series of 10 metrics to identify constrained or transitional neighborhoods, things like tax delinquency and crime rates.

“In simple terms, those are tipping point neighborhoods, where if there’s not some intervention — and intervention that’s effective — those neighborhoods are going to become distressed,” Beniston said. “If we’re going to fix 50 houses, why not focus on a couple streets that would be most beneficial to these neighborhoods.”

The focused efforts lead to tangible results. If you drive through the Idora neighborhood today, it looks significantly different than it did five years ago.

DEFENDING YOUNGSTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

One could claim that boarding up houses and mowing lawns is primarily cosmetic, but there is research that shows these strategies are effective.

“You can start cold calling economic development directors in the Midwest,” Beniston said. “The first thing that they’re going to tell you is you’re never going to get any investment in your city if it looks bad. So you need to clean it up.”

Youngstown Mayor John McNally said YNDC has been instrumental in the city’s beautification efforts.

“They are really the main force in helping to improve quality-of-life issues in the city of Youngstown,” McNally said. “The city dollars and city staff cannot do everything. We need additional resources, and YNDC, quite frankly, has become that additional resource.”

They also address the perception that the city is unsafe. This needs to be overcome in order for people to feel comfortable buying houses and establishing businesses here.

“For a lot of people, if they drive down the street and there’s five houses with no doors or windows on them, or there’s a commercial building that’s crumbling and falling over. Whether that community is safe or not, that alone creates a perception that it’s not,” Beniston said.

Beniston said the city can attract jobs through economic development, but if people continue to move out of the city, those employment gains will be offset.

“We need to retain the people that are here — particularly people that are working — because if they don’t work in the city, and then they move out of the city, they are no longer paying city income tax,” Beniston said.

Their work hasn’t created thousands of jobs, but it has decreased vacancy rates in targeted neighborhoods, increased home ownership and stabilized property values.

They’ve also engaged the community. Last year alone, 1,000 residents and volunteers participated in neighborhood improvement projects. This year they’re expecting to increase that number by 50 percent.

GOING COMMERCIAL

A string trio performs at the Mahoning Avenue Better Block on Saturday.

The natural progression of YNDC’s efforts to stabilize the neighborhood housing stock is the development of commercial corridors, which provide neighborhood residents with amenities and jobs.

“Often times, no matter how stable or marketable the actual interior residential streets are, if the commercial corridor’s not something that’s desirable, it’s very difficult to maintain stability within the surrounding neighborhood,” Beniston said.

Beniston said the lion’s share of their work is still residential, but they’re carrying out the same process of planning and removing blight along corridors — they’ve already removed dozens of buildings along Glenwood and they’re continuing to remove more. They’re also obtaining infrastructure grants and assembling land.

One of the challenges Youngstown faces as it looks toward revitalizing its commercial corridors is that the built environment isn’t as strong as it is in cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Along Glenwood Avenue, there are swaths of vacant land between houses and commercial buildings.

“We don’t have density which means we don’t have walkability,” Beniston said. “So it’s a whole ‘nother challenge.”

The city has more commercial space than could be occupied given its current population, so finding alternative uses is a challenge as well.

“Some of it’s just going to be grass or perhaps spaces that can be temporarily activated, but not all the time.” Beniston said. “But in the interim, they can be maintained and look decent.”

They’ve focused the Better Blocks on areas that have some degree of density. He said that if there are four or five contiguous buildings that can be occupied, it creates a nucleus for future growth along that corridor.

The Better Block events function as a first step in the process of revitalizing corridors — temporarily activating the spaces — but it’s a long-term goal.

“It’s been decades in the making of disinvestment, buildings falling into disrepair, businesses leaving,” Beniston said. “The process of trying to get things back to a point where the blight is removed, the spaces in between are maintained and being used as active spaces, and then attracting business investment is a long one.”

To view the full coverage, click here.

We’ve decided to try telling stories that take place across the entire city.

The average student at Youngstown State University regularly drives to campus and maybe goes downtown on the weekend, and that may be the extent of their Youngstown experience. Some students don’t leave the university nest.

We do the same thing in our coverage. We’re a university paper, so we focus on university issues. Sometimes we make it downtown, but we rarely stray further than that.

In this issue, we’re telling seven stories, one from each of Youngstown’s seven wards. Youngstown is divided into wards for management purposes based on population. Each ward gets its own councilman, and the councilman represents the needs of their constituents.

Keep in mind that this is not a definitive portrait of Youngstown. It’s a brief snapshot of a changing city. The seven stories we chose are not necessarily the seven most important things happening in the seven wards. They may not be the most deserving; they may not be the most dramatic. But these are the stories that caught our attention, and these are the stories we’re excited to share.

We wanted to examine the city’s past, its current situation and it’s future. Did you know there’s an old polka recording studio in the 7th Ward? The 6th Ward is home to a crime-fighting priest. Have you dared to venture into the 2nd Ward? You should, it might surprise you.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation — located in the 5th Ward — transformed a block for a day to paint a picture of one neighborhood’s potential future. In the 3rd Ward, a historic field was rescued from disrepair while rugby players in the 4th Ward prepare to save a field of their own. One woman — a four-year resident of the 1st Ward’s prison — is on a journey to take control of her life and re-enter society.

Youngstown isn’t in its prime. Just as there are problems to be fixed in every ward, there are also victories to be celebrated citywide. City workers, organization volunteers and private citizens are pushing back against the creep of blight.

What we’re trying to accomplish with this edition is to draw the population’s eye outward, so that they can view the entire city for what it is, one that’s working off the clock to redeem its name.

To view the full coverage, click here.

“It’s Camel,” an old man spat. The Royal Oaks regular shifted in his chair to face another patron who had committed the East Side sin of mispronouncing the small city’s name.

“It’s called Camel. Campbell is a f—ing soup.”

Wild tufts of gray hair bordered his narrow, weathered face, and his sharp, aggressive tone kept him somewhat isolated even while flanked by patrons. Despite this, he still greeted each person seated at the bar and asked where they’d been, regardless of whether or not he’d ever met them. He was the embodiment of the East Side; tough, worn and a lot nicer than one might expect.

Youngstown’s East Side — primarily composed of the city’s 2nd Ward — has a reputation as a lawless, abandoned and forgotten region of the city. Essentially, it’s Youngstown’s Youngstown.

This reputation is only partially deserved. While the 2nd Ward does have it’s issues — it has the highest rate of property abandonment in the city, infrastructure problems and as of 2010, 16 percent of the Ward’s population was prisoners — it is also the largest of the wards and home to an array of fiercely independent business owners and citizens fighting to make the neighborhoods livable.

Drivers traveling through the 2nd Ward from downtown can expect to see typical urban zones eventually give way to deteriorating streets devoid of residents and homes. Beyond these abandoned zones — such as Sharon Line, essentially a ghost neighborhood that was zoned but never realized due to Youngstown losing the steel industry — lush, forested areas hide small neighborhoods and surprising landmarks, such as McKelvey Lake, which looks like it was plucked out of New Springfield and dropped in the middle of the city.

The city and organizations like the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation and the Northeast Homeowners and Concerned Citizens group have been working to improve the Ward — initially through residential code enforcement, blight razing and spot beautification projects — and have plans in the works for substantial infrastructure repair.

However, considering the size of the Ward, it will take some time — YNDC’s latest plans for the Ward project out to 2020 — before many of the revitalization plans are realized.

In the meantime, East Side entrepreneurs must not only battle the ever-present struggles of small business ownership but also fight the Ward’s stigma to attract customers. Many of the businesses that survive in the East Side have done so by digging in and establishing themselves as neighborhood institutions.

David Mastrey’s City Limits restaurant — situated just outside the gates of the Four Seasons flea market on McCartney Road — is always full, patronized by locals, city council members, lawyers and Jim Tressel, Youngstown State University’s president. They rarely advertise.

“We operate pretty much off word of mouth … I hardly ever advertise. I don’t need to, I don’t have enough room,” Mastrey said. “Last night I sold 140-150 pounds of fish, during Lent you can double that.”

The restaurant is a greasy spoon diner, with an interior that’s small when compared to a corporate diner such as Denny’s, but the recently expanded dining room is large enough to be comfortably cozy. Mastrey attributes his success to the quality of his product and the wide variety of customers offering up recommendations for his establishment.

“People vouching for quality is what gets you customers here,” Mastrey said. “We get all walks of life in here. I truthfully don’t know why, but it happens. A lot of people are friends of my parents, and my father’s been gone for 35 years. It’s all grown out of friends of friends that keep coming back.”

Similar to City Limits, Brownlee’s Lawnmower Service — operating since 1998 — has thrived on the word of mouth from local customers. Though run from a brown, cement block warehouse full of lawn mowers and small engine parts, but lacking any sort of storefront or customer seating area, the parking lot of Brownlee’s is rarely empty.

Keith Brownlee is the owner’s son and a repairman at the shop. In between pulls of a lawn mower’s starter rope, Brownlee shared what he believed was the core of his family’s success.

“I’ll tell you what, the main thing is to treat people fair and do good business. That’s how my dad [Brownlee’s owner] made his reputation. He treats [customers] good and fair regardless of who they are and where they come from and you know stand behind your work,” Brownlee said. “That’ll keep you going — be fair and stand behind your work. He’s always had a good rapport with people and he’s an honest guy.”

While Mastrey has managed to keep his restaurant profitable for 15 years and Brownlee’s has been in operation since 1998, both operators are aware of the stigma attached to the 2nd Ward.

“I used to have a car show here, and I couldn’t get 50 cars to come here because the owners were afraid their cars would get stolen,” Mastrey said. “We could have a 2,000 car show here, no problem, but it just couldn’t get off the ground. People are goofy, they hear East Side and they start to shudder.”

Despite the city’s plans for revitalization, Mastrey — a 35-year resident of the East Side — feels that the 2nd Ward has largely been ignored by the city and high profile businesses.

“I think really what happens here is they neglect this side of town. Everything happens everywhere else until something bad happens, then there’s attention,” Mastrey said. “Why couldn’t we get a racino here? That flea market’s got 100-some acres. I don’t think they want to do anything with this side of town. I think they like it like this.”

Brownlee noted that the city’s aggressive code enforcement policies are a point of frustration for East Side residents.

“You know, I like the freedom of being out here, but at the same time, the city could use to come over to [McGuffey Heights] a little more. Prime example: if you ride down the street you’ll see a lot of dead houses, a lot of them owned by the city or whatever. They won’t cut the grass. But if you don’t cut your grass, they’ll come and fine you,” Brownlee said. “They got to be more involved in taking care of their stuff and making sure what they have is good. They’re on us about our stuff a lot but they don’t do the same.”

While both Mastrey and Brownlee have years of observation behind their criticisms, the city does have projects and plans through YNDC and the NEHOCC that are helping to improve conditions on the 2nd Ward. This does not negate their desire to see more city intervention, but instead highlights the enormity of the task facing organizations invested in revitalization of the East Side.

Ian Beniston, executive director of the YNDC, is responsible for the group’s day-to-day operations and ensuring YNDC hits their goals. When questioned about whether or not the city was truly negligent in its engagement with the 2nd Ward, Beniston provided a list of past, current and proposed projects set in the East Side.

“We’ve been working probably for the longest in the Lincoln Knolls neighborhood, repairing housing, a number of occupied properties and doing more currently. We’ve renovated housing and recently sold a renovated home to a new homeowner,” Beniston said. “We’ve got an action team and a fully-developed neighborhood action plan in place in that neighborhood, and we’ve helped them raise funds for neighborhood improvement projects.”

Lincoln Knolls — home to the Lincoln Knolls plaza and Four Seasons flea market — is already a commerce center frequented by many 2nd Ward residents. Continuing to focus on commercial centers, YNDC’s newest plan targets the neighborhoods surrounding McGuffey Road.

“We just wrapped up developing the greater McGuffey corridor action plan. We’ve been doing a lot of basic neighborhood clean ups, a lot of boarding up abandoned houses like we do all over the city. We’ve also been working with the Northeast Homeowners and the councilman [T.J. Rodgers] to revamp Jacobs Road, and that’ll include a whole new look for the landscape and the medians as well as neighborhood signage,” Beniston said. “We’ve also put together a micro plan for the Martin Luther King elementary school which … we’ll be using to apply for grant funds, which we’ll use to upgrade infrastructure including sidewalks and other basic neighborhood infrastructure. So, I’d say we’re doing the same if not more work on the East Side, and we plan on growing our influence there.”

The city is reaching out, and in time, the 2nd Ward may see the same transformation that’s happening downtown and in the Idora neighborhood. As the work is being done in the meantime, it will fall to local businesses to continue to hold the line and fight the East Side stigma — a reality Keith Brownlee recognizes.

“We can do what we can do over here … We got a responsibility too to keep things nice out here, so it’s gotta be work on both ends,” Brownlee said.

As for Mastrey at City Limits, he has no plans on shutting down anytime soon, regardless of how long it takes for an East Side transformation.

“There’s only a few people who put businesses over here, but our people deserve it,” Mastrey said. “I don’t plan on going anywhere, I’ll die here.”

To view the full coverage, click here.

Friday, October 2, 2015

The Department of Justice awarded $155,522 to YNDC for the South Avenue Revitalization Project, a strategic planning initiative that will assemble a coalition to analyze crime drivers along the South Avenue corridor, develop strategies to reduce crime and blight, and increase access to economic opportunity and social services.

The targeted area is bounded by Market St. and Shady Run Rd. on the South Side, which is home to just 14% of Youngstown's population, but witnessed nearly 30% of all robberies and aggravated assaults in the city in 2014. The majority of funds will be used for data analysis, best practices research, community engagement, and strategy development, but a portion will be used for an implementation project to be executed in 2016. Once completed, the strategic plan will allow the City and its partners to seek additional resources for implementation through the Department of Justice and other federal, state, and local funding sources.

Friday, October 2, 2015

On Friday, October 2, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) and The Raymond John Wean Foundation (Wean Foundation) collected three of the seven statewide awards made by the Ohio Community Development Corporation Association (OCDCA) at its 31st annual conference in Kent, Ohio.

Ian Beniston, YNDC Executive Director was selected as CDC Staff Member of the Year; Tiffany Sokol, YNDC Housing Director was selected for the Stephanie Bevens Award; and The Raymond John Wean Foundation was selected as the CDC Partner of the Year for its support and work with YNDC and the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership. These selections were made by a panel of third-party judges who evaluated the efforts of the outstanding work of nominees from across the State of Ohio over the past twelve months.

The Board of Control approved funds for two South Avenue projects Thursday: a façade renovation and the demolition of a long-blighted property along the corridor, the former Krakusy Hall.

The façade renovation agreement for Ursuline Center’s Merici Housing will provide a grant of up to $6,070 for work at 3314 South Ave., where Merici will manage housing cases for its clients, said Brigid Kennedy, co-executive director of the center.

Work includes repairing a portico, installing new doors, a light pole and sign, landscaping and painting, said Tom DeAngelo, economic development coordinator for the city. The cost for the façade work is estimated at $15,177.

The project is expected to create five part-time jobs.

“It’s one thing to talk about demolition, and it’s an important issue,” Kennedy said. “But you also have to talk about rebuilding. You have to talk about renovating. You have talk about taking existing structures and repurposing them,” she continued. “This is a neighborhood that has potential but you have to put some investment in it.”

With the grant funds approved, Kennedy said work should begin next week on the façade. Most of the interior work is complete. “So by the end of October we hope to be fully up and running,” she said.

Additionally, the organization will make space for use by other community groups including the South Avenue Area Neighborhood Development Initiative, block watches and Alcoholics Anonymous, she said.

The Ursuline Center also owns property adjacent to the 3314 South Ave. building, which the center intends to renovate as congregate low-income housing, she said. It recently tore down a building it owned at South and East Auburndale avenues, where it plans to develop a four-unit apartment building.

The Board of Control also approved a contract with ProQuality Excavating, Campbell, to demolish the former Krakusy Hall, 2205 South Ave. ProQuality was selected from seven companies that submitted bids.

The hall, closed several years ago, was among the properties in a real estate scam perpetrated by Ondrea Shabazz of Youngstown, said Abigail Beniston, city code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent.

Shabazz was convicted last year on federal charges of real estate fraud, identification fraud and mail fraud.

“We’re going to demolish [the building] and assess the costs of demolition,” Beniston said. More than likely the city will foreclose on the property and it will end up in the land bank.

Acting on the property was essential because of the city’s emphasis on cleaning up the South Avenue corridor, she said.

The building has been in a “state of disrepair for years,” Mayor John McNally said. “We needed to do something with that structure.”

McNally, chairman of the Board of Control, said he is pleased that Youngstown could help with the Ursuline Center project. “They’re doing a lot of good work to clean up their little section of South Avenue,” he remarked.

The board approved a $48,275 contract for asbestos abatement of 16 properties in the Taft Elementary School neighborhood near South Avenue, he pointed out, and funds to be raised by a proposed increase in residential sanitation fees will be targeted for demolition. These include properties on South Avenue from Midlothian Boulevard moving north.

“Aesthetically, South Avenue, Wick Avenue and Logan Avenue are the areas that need the most cleaning up,” McNally said.

By this time next year, he hopes that South Avenue from Williamson Avenue to Midlothian Boulevard will be repaved with upgraded traffic signals.

The neighborhood was a focus during the recent United Way Day of Caring and last week community police swept part of the corridor.

“Most of our day-to-day crime challenges are sort of in that higher end of the South Avenue corridor between Midlothian and Indianola,” he said, “so we’re going to continue to focus on that area through a variety of different means.”

To view the full coverage, click here.

The city’s board of control hired Gene Fehr, a former Mahoning County Common Pleas Court magistrate, to serve as the speed-enforcement hearing officer for $95 an hour.

Fehr, of Austintown, said, “I’m learning what this legal entity is,” referring to being a speed-enforcement hearing officer. “I know it’s not a criminal court, but I need to research what rules of procedure apply. It’s definitely going to be a process for everyone as to how this is done."

The board chose Fehr over four other applicants.

Fehr recently returned to private practice this spring after 14 years as a county common pleas magistrate. He remains a part-time magistrate in the mayor’s court in Louisville in Stark County, which handles matters such as speeding.

Fehr said he and some city officials plan to visit a jurisdiction with speed radar guns to see how they handle the matters.

“I want it to be a friendly court,” he said. “I’ve read The Vindicator and I know some people see it as a money grab. I don’t. This will be a learning process. We don’t want to make it difficult.

”The hearings would start either late this month or in November, said city Law Director Martin Hume, a board of control member.

City officials didn’t know Thursday how many appeals of the citations have been made.

As of last week, the police department had cited about 2,500 people for speeding using radar guns. The program started Aug. 18.

The system allows police officers to point the radar guns at cars and have civil-fee citations issued rather than stopping speeders and giving them moving-violation tickets with a fine and points on their driving records.

Under state law, a uniformed police officer must use the guns to check speed.

Optotraffic, a Latham, Md., company, provided the speed guns and handles the paperwork, including mailing the citations, for a fee of 35 percent.

Speeders face civil penalties: $100 for those driving up to 13 mph over the speed limit, $125 for 14 to 19 mph over the limit, and $150 for those driving at least 20 mph over the limit.

Records show the city issues citations for vehicles that go at least 12 mph over the speed limit on highways and at least 10 mph over the limit in school zones.

Also Thursday, the board approved a $38,070 contact to have ProQuality Land Development of Campbell demolish the former Krakusy Hall at 2205 South Ave.

Seven companies sought the job, but several had trouble understanding the proposal, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public-works department.

That led to proposals ranging from $37,777 to $13,846,945. That apparent low proposal didn’t include much of the work needed to take down the structure, he said. ProQuality had the least-expensive complete proposal for the work, Shasho said.

The 76-year-old building has been vacant for about seven or eight years and is in bad shape, said Abigail Beniston, the city’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent.It was the home of the Free Polish Krakusy Society and was used for various events from weddings to boxing matches.

“This helps clean up the corridor of South Avenue,” Beniston said.The board also approved a $48,275 proposal from Environmental Protection Systems of Girard to remove asbestos from 16 vacant houses on East Avondale and East Boston avenues, near Taft Elementary School.

“These are the worst of the abandoned houses around the school,” Beniston said. “We surrounded the perimeter of the school. This is really going to make a difference in that neighborhood.

”The demolition work will be done by Youngstown Air Reserve Station reservists at no cost. It’s part of an agreement with the city to have Air Force reservists do various neighborhood blight-removal projects.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.

Monday, October 5, 2015

On Monday, October 5, Denise DeBartolo York made a $10,000 donation to YNDC for the development of its workshop and storage facility at 45 Oneta Street. 

The 1440 square foot, 1.5 acre facility provides YNDC with space to maintenance its fleet of vehicles and professional landscaping equipment, and improvements made with these funds will enable the organization to expand the number of vacant home board-up and rehabilitation projects completed each year, the number of volunteers engaged, and the number of seasonal jobs that can be sustained through the winter months. Thank you, Denise DeBartolo York for your generous contribution!

The city has come to an agreement with ALDI Inc. for the grocery chain to donate the former Bottom Dollar Food store property on Glenwood Avenue to the municipality.

Mayor John A. McNally confirmed Friday that a deal is in place with legislation to be considered by city council at its Wednesday meeting to authorize the board of control to sign a contract to have the city own the site.

“The Glenwood Avenue property would be gifted back to Youngstown [at no cost] for the city to own and figure out how to develop further,” he said. “Once we retain ownership of the property, the city’s main goal is to have a grocery store there.

”McNally said the city has had conversations with several groups – which he declined to name – about that property. Before his death, Henry Nemenz, whose family owns 24 grocery stores in the area, said he was interested in this property, the two other former Bottom Dollars on East Midlothian Boulevard and Mahoning Avenue, as well as the closed Sparkle Market on Mahoning Avenue.

After obtaining ownership of the Glenwood location, McNally said the city will seek requests for proposals from businesses to purchase the property.“We’ll consider other uses, but a grocery store there is concern No. 1,” he said.

The city sold the Glenwood Avenue property in 2010 to Bottom Dollar for $14,000. That land featured Fosterville Park, which consisted of old playground equipment, and the closed Cleveland School.

Two years later, Bottom Dollar opened a 17,000-square-foot location, the only full-service grocery store on the South Side.

Bottom Dollar’s parent company, Delhaize Group, announced in November 2014 that it had sold all 66 of its locations for $15 million to ALDI, another grocery-store chain.ALDI opted to convert 30 of the Bottom Dollar locations, but none of the three in Youngstown made the cut.

Since that decision in January, city officials have been asking ALDI to donate the Glenwood property to Youngstown.Bottom Dollar leased the Mahoning Avenue store with ALDI taking over that lease.

The city approached ALDI about donating the East Midlothian Boulevard property that the company owns, McNally said.

“They’re trying to market that separately” and won’t give the city the store, which is located in a shopping plaza, the mayor said. There are full-service grocery stores near the Midlothian location in Struthers and Boardman, McNally said.

But there are no full-service grocery stores near the Glenwood site, he said.

The Glenwood location is considered to be in a food desert, a term used to describe struggling urban areas without full-service grocery stores within a mile. About 74 percent of city residents live in food deserts, according to Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies.There are only five full-service supermarkets in the city.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.