YOUNGSTOWN YSU walkway will undergo steps toward enhancement

The area is the entrance to the campus from Smoky Hollow.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University officials plan to connect the east and west sides of campus by renovating a walkway that will lead students from the new University Courtyard apartments past Kilcawley Center and to Fifth Avenue and Stambaugh Stadium.
The plan will begin with work to a portion of Spring Street on the campus' far east side, bordering the north side of Bliss Hall. Cost of the project is $266,000.
"We're trying to get it cleaned up, make it more aesthetic," said John Hyden, director of facilities at YSU. "The sidewalk is in terrible condition; the roadway is in terrible condition."
What's in store
The strip of road between Wick Avenue and Wick Oval will be repaved, and the area will get new sidewalks, lighting and fencing. Utilities, now on poles along the road, will be placed underground.
Hyden said a set of crumbling steps leading into the north side of Bliss Hall will also be replaced.
He said a goal of the street project is to enhance the area, which is home to the new apartment complex and a new addition to Bliss Hall. The addition, facing east onto Walnut Street, will give the building "another front," opposite the one facing Wick Avenue, with a gate and fence and sculptures by a member of the art department's faculty.
The $3.3 million, 18,000 square-foot Bliss addition will house a foundry; painting, sculpture and general use studios; an outdoor sculpture court; a wood workshop; a computer lab; offices and a warehouse, said Dennis Clouse, YSU's director of planning and construction.
"It's all part of the move for use toward the hollow," he said, adding that other changes in the area are helping to put "a whole new front on Walnut Street."
"It's great to see good things happening," he said.
Other improvements
Further improvements in the area include plans for the rebirth of Smoky Hollow as well as possible renovations near the Wick-Pollock Inn.
Once plans begin, the east Spring Street area will become the gateway to campus from the hollow, Hyden said.
The Spring Street improvements will help create a pedestrian thoroughfare through campus -- "something that really tells you you're on campus," he added.
"We've got a hodge-podge corridor that runs from the stadium all the way down to the Oval," he said. "We'd like to unify that and get some continuity in that corridor."