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City Buys 8.2 Acres for Entrance to Vallourec
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The city will purchase 8.2 acres of property from Norfolk Southern Railway that Vallourec Star will use to improve site access from Route 422.
Under the agreement, which the city’s Board of Control approved during its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, the city will pay $329,000 for the property, which is located near the Girard border, said Finance Director David Bozanich, one of three city officials who serve on the board. Under a reimbursement agreement with Vallourec, the city will be repaid for the purchase.
The city, which assisted Vallourec with assembling and preparing land for its new $1.1 billion pipe mill, had anticipated “pretty much early on” that it would be purchasing the Norfolk Southern property. “It was ultimately contingent upon Vallourec’s final plans in terms of how they wanted traffic to be brought in and out of the site,” Bozanich said.
The company is “looking at using that property to improve the entranceway into that main site,” he said. “It will make ingress and egress on the site significantly better from Vallourec’s perspective.” Some environmental cleanup will be involved as well as constructing an entranceway to accommodate vehicular traffic, both truck and passenger vehicles.
The agreement before the board also included provisions for a non-exclusive license agreement, amendment to lease and a memorandum of lease, but the item was amended to remove those provisions because documents related to them were not ready. Bozanich said those provisions will be added later.
During the meeting, the city also approved an agreement with the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services to utilize 10 participants in the Work Experience Program.
WEP is for recipients of Ohio Works First benefits, or food stamps, said Martin Hume, city law director. “They have a requirement that they seek work and if work’s not available they’ll be provided work,” he said. The program will allow people to do jobs for the city and gain work experience, hopefully benefiting both the participants and the city.
Participants will assist with such tasks as pothole repair and litter cleanup downtown, “just basically anything that’s going to help the city look better and be more successful to its citizens,” Hume said. He expects the initiative to get under way in the next few weeks.
“Obviously with the weather that we’ve had this winter there are a large number of potholes. The city can be liable if we don’t patch them fast enough so it’s a priority for the law department to try to get all the potholes filled as quickly as possible,” Hume said. Also, since downtown is “sort of our gateway to the community,” having the downtown clean is a priority, he said.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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