YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- A South Side improvement organization plans to operate a small business incubator on a long-vacant building on Oak Hill Avenue, reports the group‘s director, former municipal judge Patrick Kerrigan.

The Oak Hill Collaborative will also locate offices in the building at 507 Oak Hill Ave. The incubator is set to open in about six weeks, following a nearly $200,000 renovation of the building, which had been owned by the former Forum Health Inc.

Oak Hill Collaborative, formed six months ago, acquired the 3,120-square-foot building from its most recent owners for $20,000, Mahoning County property records show. Community Health Systems Inc., which acquired Forum’s assets in 2010, has agreed to donate an adjacent parcel to the nonprofit organization.

Kerrigan says his organization discovered the building and decided it would be a good location for a business incubator. Oak Hill Collaborative also wants to build upon the neighborhood revitalization and cleanup efforts launched by St. Patrick Church in the South Side neighborhood and to move them down the street. “We think it’s not the duty of the church, or for people to look to the church, to continue those efforts, and we formed this corporation to do that,” he said.

Kerrigan discussed Oak Hill Collaborative’s plans for the property Tuesday with the city’s Design Review Committee, which deferred action on its proposal so Kerrigan could present more detailed information. The project lies slightly outside the central business district, where the committee must approve exterior aesthetic improvements for properties. But since the collaborative plans to seek grant funds from the Youngstown Initiative program for façade improvements, the committee must approve plans using those funds.

About $150,000 has already been spent to acquire the Oak Hill building and redo the interior, including tearing down walls, redoing the floor and plumbing, electrical and heating/ventilating/air conditioning work, as well as roof work, Kerrigan told the committee members. “We have a substantial amount of money to say the least in the building,” he said. The outside of the building is in “substantial disrepair” and the organization has budgeted about $46,000 for exterior work, including addressing a retaining wall. Kerrigan projected a July 1 completion date for the work, although incubator activities will begin prior to that date.

Once it opens, the incubator will provide “self-employment opportunities” for people to use that space, Kerrigan said. It will have office space, a printer/copier, a conference room, telephones, storage space and work area. While it isn’t going to be like the Youngstown Business Incubator, which specializes in business-to-business technology, “hopefully it will be able to help young people in the neighborhood,” he said.

The incubator's first tenant will be Flannel Farms LLC, an urban agriculture business, Kerrigan said. Other prospective tenants are being considered as well.

Looking to what has been done on Market Street as an example, community activists on Oak Hill have shown what can be done “with a little creativity,” said Fr. Ed Noga, who has been pastor at St. Patrick Church since April 1985. The proposed incubator would allow fledgling businesses to share amenities that otherwise “would drag a new company down,” as well as to feed off each other and have the benefit of professional office areas, he said.

The collaborative's request was one of two the committee deferred action on to allow applicants for façade improvement funds more time to provide additional information. FightChannel.com LLC, a pay-per-view company at 2930 Market St., also was asked to present more detailed plans for its project.

Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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