Downtown Developers Plan Apartments, Grocery Store
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Imagine a downtown Youngstown where merchants, young professionals, college undergraduates and graduate students, landlords and others live just blocks away from where they work or study, dine in nearby restaurants before taking in a show that features nationally known entertainers and stop for a drink afterward – even grab groceries from a nearby grocery store.
Just a decade ago, such a scenario would have drawn skepticism at best from even the most ardent booster of the central business district. Today, many of those elements are in place and one that had long been seen as unlikely – a grocery store to serve the growing number of residents downtown – is moving close to reality.
NYO Property Group is in discussions with a “very familiar name” in the grocery business about opening a full-service store in the 16 Wick Building, occupying the ground floor used for decades by PNC Bank and its predecessors, National City Bank and the Dollar Savings & Trust Co. The potential grocer has signed a letter of intent for the space, confirms Dominic J. Marchionda, a principal and CEO of NYO Property Group.
This potential deal and other initatives come as downtown developers and landlords move forward on new projects, the latest in a series of steps that began more than a decade ago with the construction of new government buildings downtown and the arena now known as the Covelli Centre. While the venue has brought A-list performing artists, the establishment of an arts and entertainment district also allowed additional liquor permits for restaurants and bars, raising the central business district’s profile.
“There is a lot of interest that’s generated in downtown. There are countless times I hear from individuals who are down here for whatever reason that they can’t believe how things have turned around,” reports T. Sharon Woodberry, city economic development director. “We’ve got a more diverse use of the buildings now with residential being a component of that.”
Affirming the demand for residences is occupancy of the units in Erie Terminal and Realty Tower, both NYO properties, and Marchionda is moving forward with redevelopment of the Wick Building. That structure would feature a mix of apartments and extended-stay rooms.
“There is a lot of excitement, a lot of buzz around it,” he says. “We’re looking to deliver it completed this time next year.”
Residential is also a component of the upcoming redevelopment of the Wells Building by Wells Associated Renaissance Partners, a partnership formed by Strollo Architects. The firm, which has been downtown 57 years, plans to relocate its offices from 20 Federal Place to the ground floor of the Wells Building and develop the upper floors into apartments to serve the nearby Taft Technology Building.
“We stay in the central business district because we think it’s important to the region, and the health of the region translates to healthy business for us,” remarks Gregg Strollo, president and principal of Strollo Architects. Strollo is working to complete financing and begin construction by the end of the year. Anticipated completion date of the project is late next summer.
“It’s been quite a ride,” the president of Ohio One Corp. Rich Mills, muses about the comeback of the downtown. Over the years, Ohio One has shifted from a developer to operating as a management company, managing its own five buildings downtown and other downtown properties.
Mills’ father formed the partnership in 1973 that two years later became Ohio One Corp. to develop City Centre One downtown.
Four decades ago, major retailers such as Strouss’ were open here and downtown was “petty populated,” Rich Mills recalls. Then came the flight to the suburbs over the next two decades, retailers first then offices.
“Now we’re getting some good publicity and there’s positive things happening downtown,” Mills says. “The housing downtown is huge. That’s spurring a lot of restaurants to open. There’s more housing to come. That’s encouraging.”
Mills is near completion of a deal that would bring a restaurant back to the old End of the Tunnel in the basement of City Centre One. Still, he laments, the lack of a “high-end white tablecloth restaurant” downtown as well as a shortage of meeting rooms that the former Youngstown Club, in Ohio One’s Commerce Building, offered until it closed Jan. 1.
Mills has unsuccessfully sought another restaurant and banquet operator for the space, and is working on a deal that would take away much of the Youngstown Club space for a food operation.
“We are pricing the conversion of most of the fifth floor into offices and we’re in negotiations with a first-class tenant for the fifth floor,” Mills says. “That would leave about half of the fifth floor and half of the fourth floor that they [the Youngstown Club] had for meeting rooms and offices.”
The grocery store, which principals emphasize is still in the discussion stages, would occupy 15,000 square feet, possibly more, of the space that once housed PNC’s downtown branch, according to Marchionda.
To help the project along, Marchionda says he’s applied to the state for new market tax credits and is confident state officials will look favorably. Marchionda is working with Laurel Grocery Co., a Cincinnati wholesaler, and a grocer who declined to discuss the project because it is in the early stages.
Gary Crawford, senior vice president of sales and development for Laurel Grocery, says a market study has been conducted of the area. “We are excited about the revitalization of downtown Youngstown,” he says. The concept likely would be a combination “grocery/prepared foods situation,” he says.
Marchionda is similarly optimistic about a separate application filed with the state, for historic preservation tax credits, to boost another project he disclosed earlier this year, a hotel in the Stambaugh Building. He reports he is working with two potential franchises, both “very big names” in the hospitality industry.
“It’s in the design process. We’re moving forward,” he says. Marchionda anticipates a decision on the tax credit application by the end of the year. “We hope with that favorable response we’ll start construction of that project sometime at the end of next year,” he says.
Farmers National Bank has yet to move forward on a proposed office in NYO’s Realty Building, a prospect made public last February when officials went before Youngstown’s design review committee to get approval for a sign. Should Farmers not elect to create the downtown office, Marchionda said his company is working on an alternative. “It would be a great location for [Farmers] but truthfully I think if it doesn’t happen, this backup plan is probably something that suits the building better,” he says.
A Farmers spokeswoman says the bank remains interested in opening an office downtown but red tape has delayed the project.
A more recent addition to the downtown landscape, the Gatta Co., Girard, had done projects at Kent State University and the University of Akron. Its president, Dominic Gatta III, wondered why the activity in those cities’ downtowns couldn’t be replicated here. The company purchased the Federal Building about four years ago.
With YSU and its proximity to the downtown, “We thought we could develop this into a model that we’ve seen be very successful in other cities,” he remarks. The Federal Building, with a restaurant on the ground floor and 14 apartment units, is at 100% occupancy, he reports.
The success of that building’s development led the Gatta Co.’s to purchase the Gallagher Building for a similar project with two restaurants on the ground level, the second floor occupied by an expanded day program for The Purple Cat, and 12 apartments on the third and fourth floors.
Gatta says his company has cleared out the building and is pursuing a historic designation for the property that in turn would qualify the project for state and federal historic preservation programs. “The need is here for more apartments,” he says. He anticipates physical work will resume after the first of the year.
The city income tax remains among the main concerns Woodberry hears from businesses and developers interested in the downtown. The income tax is “not something that we ignore” but the city hasn’t “found the right solution to address it,” she says.
“I still hear complaints about parking a lot, too,” she adds.
For the most part, Marchionda says, the concern he hears potential tenants express is whether the resurgence of the downtown is for real. In response, he points to anchors such as the new Vallourec Star mill, the Youngstown Business Incubator, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute and Youngstown State University.
“All of those are very important components to a successful downtown,” he remarks. “We’ve got a solid, solid foundation, and I tell them the fact is we’re all working together now to improve the downtown.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is on the front page of the December edition of The Business Journal, in subscribers' mailboxes on Tuesday.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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