CITY SCHOOLS Board to explore stadium options

City and diocesan schools may share the proposed central stadium.
YOUNGSTOWN -- The city school board has unanimously decided to explore two alternatives for a new central stadium to be shared by city high schools.
One alternative would be to have Home Field Advantage, a nonprofit organization, own and operate the stadium and lease it to the Youngstown City Schools and the Catholic Diocese schools. Each high school team, East, Chaney, Mooney and Ursuline, would have its own locker room, and the visiting team would have its own locker room.
The other alternative the board wants to explore would be for the Youngstown City Schools to own and operate the stadium, which would be donated by HFA.
Two other options were put before the board Tuesday by the board's extracurricular committee. One would have had HFA build, own and maintain the stadium and lease it solely to the Youngstown City Schools. The other would have been to continue the city schools' current practice of renting Youngstown State University's Stambaugh Stadium at $2,500 per football game.
Chairman's vision
Jamael Brown, chairman of the board's extracurricular committee, said he envisions an 8,000-seat stadium with a track to be built entirely with private donations raised by HFA at a cost of about $5 million and opening in 2006. Brown said he favors building it in a downtown location. No Youngstown Board of Education funds will be used for stadium construction, he said.
"We want to definitely make it centralized, and downtown is one of the areas that we're focusing on," he said, adding that one site under consideration is adjacent to the convocation center, which is now under construction.
The extracurricular committee will now discuss the board's chosen alternatives and potential stadium locations with city and Diocese of Youngstown officials, Brown said. After the committee studies the alternatives, "We'll report back to the board what we found with cost estimates, and we'll be very concrete at that time," he said.