YOUNGSTOWN Donation to bring lights to city

The lights are to start going up near month's end and be ready by Dec. 6.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A well-known local philanthropist is flipping the switch on a project to decorate downtown with white lights year-round.
Tony Lariccia of Boardman is donating $18,000 to buy the lights.
The city was to announce the contribution this morning. The city put out a call a month ago for private donations for the lights.
Lariccia is convinced downtown is ready to make a comeback and said he wants to help.
"I just love this area," he said. "We wanted to try and inspire rebirth of the downtown."
David C. Sweet, Youngstown State University's president, partly inspired Lariccia and his wife, Mary, to contribute. Last month, Sweet said he is organizing a campaign to clean up the city. The push will involve YSU, businesses, schools, the city and other organizations.
Impressed by cleanup
A recent cleanup downtown also impressed the Lariccias. Claire Maluso, who recently returned as the city's Federal Plaza director, brought fire hoses and inmates from a halfway house onto the plaza last month to give the pedestrian mall a good scrub down.
A clean and well-lighted downtown are the first steps to a downtown turnaround, he said.
"We would like to do what we can to put people in a positive mood," Lariccia said.
Lariccia and his wife have donated at least $3.5 million over the years to local causes from YSU and Angels for Animals to the YMCA and area high schools.
Maluso is seeking at least $25,000 to keep the plaza lighted year-round.
She has just over $20,000 after coupling the Lariccia contribution with several other donations. Several more donations are in the works to meet the $25,000 goal, she said.
Maluso is trying to raise up to $50,000 in private funds to improve the look of downtown, such as putting murals on buildings.
The white lights are to drape trees, bushes and light poles along Federal Street from the Western Reserve Transit Authority terminal at Fifth Avenue to the area beyond where the plaza ends at Walnut Street.
Sturdy, long-lasting
The lights won't be tiny, delicate Christmas lights of the past.
Instead, the larger seven-watt bulbs will be sturdier and have a five-year life span. The strands won't go dark if one light goes out.
The lights will be professionally hung and maintained be because the city doesn't have the time or staff, Maluso said. She is working to have that work done at a reduced cost, too.
The lights should start going up near the end of the month and the project finished by the Dec. 6 lighting of the city Christmas tree on the plaza, she said.
Crews will pull the lights from Federal Plaza when construction starts on reopening the street to traffic. Work is to start in the spring. The lights will go back up when the project is done, she said.
rgsmith@vindy.com