Tuesday, March 12, 2002
The acre of grass and trees should be brightening up the neighborhood this fall.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Some of the worst features of city neighborhoods confront 160 small children every day.
Each day their yellow school buses drop them off at the lower South Side's Head Start program. Five houses across from their school building -- part of Oakhill Renaissance Place -- define the word blight.Siding is stripped, windows are all broken, old tires and household trash litters the properties at Ridge Avenue and Werner Street.
In a couple of weeks, however, the kids won't have to look at the eyesores anymore.
And this fall, they should instead find a new park with an acre of grass and trees for them to roam.
Private donations and city funding are helping the Southside Community Development Corp. -- which runs the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center building -- turn that blight into Southside Renaissance Park.
"It's really going to make a big difference in this spot," said Bill Farragher, a member of the development corporation's advisory council, waving his arm across the properties. "It sends a message."
Vision: The message is that a key part of the development corporation's vision for lower South Side renewal is taking shape.
The group unveiled its plans today, and demolition started on the dilapidated homes. The site should be cleared in two or three weeks.
An anonymous private benefactor contributed $60,000 to buy and clear the site. The development corporation is counting on the Youngstown Community Development Agency to come up with about $65,000 for park landscaping. CDA manages the city's federal money, which council appropriates.
"It's sort of the opening step in the second part of our mission," said John Weed Powers, chairman of the development corporation's board.
The first goal was keeping the massive hospital building open. The development corporation has done that since 1998. It leases space to a variety of medical, nonprofit and educational agencies. Now, 269 people work on the campus, 145 of them in new jobs.
With that accomplished, the goal shifts to neighborhood renewal.
'Laying groundwork': The development corporation first thought about building new housing, said Lynncheryl Gadson, executive director of Renaissance Place. Organizers, however, found they weren't in position to do that, she said.
So, the focus turned to renewal through eliminating blight. Urban green space agrees with the overall idea of creating a neighborhood that combines housing, business and recreation, Gadson said. "We're laying the groundwork."
A park also improves the look of Renaissance Place and brightens up a gateway into the lower South Side, organizers say.
Tenants like a pleasant environment and Ridge Avenue is one of several streets that people on the lower South Side use to get between Glenwood Avenue and Market Street.
The biggest payoff, however, might come when the 160 children see a gleaming new green space, instead of eyesores. "That'd be pretty wonderful," Farragher said.
rgsmith@vindy.com