DOWNTOWN YOUNGSTOWN A BWC wing for state office building?

CIC would build the addition on top of the neighboring parking lot.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Downtown's redevelopment agency will propose an addition to a state office building to accommodate the Bureau of Workers' Compensation.
An addition to the George V. Voinovich Government Center will be one of two or three scenarios pitched to the BWC in about a month, Reid Dulberger said Tuesday.
Dulberger is executive vice president at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber. The chamber provides staff to downtown's redevelopment agency, the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp.
Dulberger declined to outline other possible proposals to accommodate BWC's desired move from Warren to downtown. He didn't rule out finding space in a downtown building for the state's 74 Warren workers and 55 Youngstown employees.
Time frame
BWC wants to consolidate its workers in Youngstown as part of a statewide restructuring. The agency wants the space ready in 12 to 15 months.
CIC can build such an addition in that time, Dulberger said. He pointed out that the $8 million, four-story Voinovich Center took just 11 months to build and move in workers.
"It is doable, albeit tight," he said.
There are no cost estimates yet for the addition.
The downtown agency's board approved spending up to $25,000, mostly on financial consultants, to make the proposal.
Financing for new construction will be tricky because the state can only sign two-year leases. The addition will have to be financed much like the complicated way the Voinovich Center was, Dulberger said.
How it would look
CIC would build the addition on top of the neighboring parking lot, the former Higbee department store site. Little parking, however, would be eliminated.
Instead, the concept is to leave the ground level available for parking and build the new office space above.
A glass walkway, roughly 30 feet long, would connect the addition and the Voinovich building at the second floor, where BWC's office is now.
The addition would encompass about one-third of the Higbee lot.
The ground-level parking wouldn't be too visible. The addition would look like a two-story building, with the facade continuing around most of the parking area to screen cars from view.
Besides the new second-floor office, additional space could be built for the third and fourth floors.
rgsmith@vindy.com