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Alliance Works for Fuller Recovery of Downtown
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The rebirth of the downtown took another step forward Tuesday evening, the length of that stride waiting to be determined.
Richard Hahn and Sharon Letson made it official, that DBAY – the acronym for Downtown Business Alliance of Youngstown – and its steering committee have been formed, and that the downtown business community has established a partnership with City Hall and looks forward to strengthening that partnership.
Hahn, president of Keynote Media Group LLC, and Letson, executive director of Youngstown CityScape, see DBAY picking up where the former Youngstown Board of Trade left off more than a decade ago and being more than a sounding board for business interests.
DBAY, said Hahn and Letson, will be the voice of the stakeholders who reside in the downtown and want their neighborhood to be an urban showcase as well as for the accountants, architects, bankers and restaurateurs who live in the suburbs and work downtown. And Youngstown State University is a partner too as more of its students choose to live downtown. Shannon Tirone, executive assistant to YSU President Cynthia Anderson, was present to symbolize the university’s support and involvement.
Membership is growing, Letson informed the audience, and everyone who’s joined has checked the highest level, $100. (Levels range from $50 to $100.)
Mayor Charles Sammarone welcomed the initiative, noting that Hahn had approached the downtown community six or seven months ago and about the role that community could play and the support it could expect from City Hall.
DBAY “is like a neighborhood watch group,” the mayor suggested. “Government cannot do it [bring back the downtown] by itself. It needs your help.”
He welcomes comments and suggestions, he said, the praise and the complaints. “I tell her [Letson] sometimes she’s a pain. She’s the squeaky wheel. [pause] I wish I had 10 people like Sharon.”
The “launch of [DBAY’s] first major downtown initiative” Hahn promised in the press release sent media outlets was delayed, he said, “but we’re very close.”
Concerns DBAY will focus on are building code enforcement, zoning, parking and especially cleanliness.
Parking remains a primary concern of Suzanne Barbati, executive director of Oh Wow! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology, its main entrance in the first block of West Federal Street. Since the center opened nearly two years ago, Barbati related, nearly 50,000 visitors have toured it and school buses have carried many of them. Parking remains unresolved.
Safety is not an issue, the audience in the second-floor auditorium of the Ohio One building agreed, only those who never come downtown believing that it is.
The matter of a small number of people who spend time downtown and “drink from paper bags,” as Barbati described them, at 10 a.m. weekdays as Oh Wow! is about to open detracts from the image DBAY would project. Suggestions on how to resolve drinking alcohol in public in open containers were proposed but no resolution reached. Sammarone said the police should be called immediately and pledged police having a higher profile as warm weather returns.
Having and maintaining a clean downtown was the other paramount concern as building owners and first-floor tenants are encouraged to keep the sidewalks swept, litter collected and windows washed. Youngstown Building Commissioner Sean T. McKinney urged power-washing sidewalks at least once every other month. Letson noted that the greater the number of owners and tenants who share the expense, the less it will cost each individual.
McKinney noted how the entrances to 20 Federal Place, owned by the city, have made progress. Employees who work in the six-story building take their cigarette breaks on the Commerce Street side by the docks and a policeman is nearby to enforce policy. No longer are visitors who use the West Federal and North Phelps streets entrances forced to navigate through smokers and step on butts.
Praised for going above and beyond was Phil Kidd, founder of Defend Youngstown and a downtown resident. On his own volition, he takes broom and dustpans after work and early in the morning, sweeping sections of the downtown, not just his North Phelps Street shop, Youngstown Nation. Still needed are more waste containers and stands where smokers can deposit their butts, he said.
Also key to the rebirth of the downtown, Hahn said, is a marketing campaign. “Marketing is more than [print and electronic] advertising,” he pointed out, it’s word of mouth, those who live and work downtown communicating with those who haven’t been there in years how it’s changed for the better.
Sammarone urged members of DBAY to “go door to door” downtown and enlist their neighbors.
“People are more aware and getting engaged,” Letson said. Sixteen years ago when the StreetScape aspect of Youngstown CityScape was born, she pointed out, the idea of cleaning up the downtown and planting flowers seemed hopelessly utopian.
In the years since, more have gotten involved and the major gateways to the city have flowerbeds and been landscaped. Hahn and Letson see no reason why the progress shouldn’t continue.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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