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P&P on Verge of Restoring Youngstown Buildings
By Dennis LaRue YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Its financing in place, P&P Development's plan to restore the Wells and Armed Forces buildings and the front of the old State Theatre are progressing nicely, Denise Powell reported Tuesday."We're close to wrapping this [financing] up and the scope of the project is unchanged," she said. P&P, a partnership involving Powell, owner of James & Weaver Office Environments, 22 W. Wood St., and Cleveland businesswoman Gaelle Pullen, would transform the Wells Building into a restaurant, offices and studio apartments at a cost in excess of $2 million.Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp., owns the structures and Powell told its property committee Tuesday that P&P is ready to buy the properties despite the inclusion of a reverter clause, that its lender, KeyBank of Cleveland, "is comfortable with the reverter clause."Concerned that those who buy their properties might not finish what they begin, the CIC's sales contracts contain clauses that state ownership of the buildings reverts to the CIC, not the lender who normally would have the buildings offered as collateral.As matters stands, Powell told the property committee, an unidentified restaurateur "has expressed interest in occupying the whole first floor," and a potential tenant she described as having "a well-qualified interest" would take all the office space on the second and third floors. Just before Christmas, she continued,"one qualified woman" called to inquire about converting the front half of the fourth floor into a large apartment. "So maybe there will be only two tenants" on the fourth floor," she added.P&P's plans presented nearly a year ago proposed retail shops and a restaurant on the first floor, the second and third converted to offices, and the fourth into as many as five studio apartments.P&P is looking to borrow $1.7 million from KeyBank and the two women stand ready to put up $500,000 on their own, CIC counsel Edwin Romero noted.The building that will house Mahoning County Children Services Board is near completion and both Children Services and the state Bureau of Workmen's Compensation have begun moving furniture into their new offices, the CIC's executive director, Jason Whitehead, reported. "Jance [Construction Co., the general contractor] has done a fine job," he stated. The committee accepted his recommendation that Ohio One Corp. provide the same services to the CSB building that it's providing the Voinovich Government Center, owned by the CIC. Ohio One opens and closes the Voinovich Center, changes light bulbs and ensures that the elevators work, among other services. For this, Ohio One is paid $40 per man hour, roughly $1,600 a month, Whitehead said.Voinovich tenants have found Ohio One services more than satisfactory, he told Water Commissioner Charles P. Sammarone, a member of the CIC committee.Whitehead also recommended that We Clean It Krystal Clean Inc., which provides janitorial services to the Voinovich Center, be given the contract for the second floor of the CSB building. BWC occupies the second floor of Voinovich and a pedestrian bridge will connect those offices its offices on the second floor of CSB.Krystal Clean is paid $1,002.65 a month to clean BWC's offices in Voinovich. A like amount would be paid for Krystal staff to clean the second floor of CSB, Whitehead said.For Krystal Clean to clean the Children Services' offices on the third and fourth floors and the garage on the first floor as well would "stretch" the janitorial company's resources, Whitehead said, so he recommended that the CIC look to award another company that work.Revised demands for office space by the state Lottery Commission and the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles will allow the CIC to keep its offices on the fourth floor of Voinovich, Whitehead added."