MAHONING VALLEY Lawmakers seek $4.5M for facility

Money is also being sought for river cleanup, a business incubator and a theater.
By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- State lawmakers from the Mahoning Valley are seeking more than $4.5 million from the state to help build the convocation center in downtown Youngstown.
The request is among projects submitted for consideration in the two-year, capital-appropriations bill, expected to be unveiled in the Legislature after the November election.
One state lawmaker says he believes it's time for the area to receive state funding for the convocation center.
"It's been our turn for a long time," said state Rep. Sylvester Patton, a Youngstown Democrat who sits on the House Finance and Appropriations Committee. "We have a viable project. Everything is right for it."
City officials and developers have broken ground on a 5,500-seat, $41 million convocation center between the Market Street and South Avenue bridges in Youngstown.
Other projects
Among other area projects submitted for state consideration:
UYoungstown Business Incubator: $2 million to help develop a market-ready incubator next to the existing Youngstown Business Incubator.
UYoungstown Symphony Society: $1.6 million to help build a proposed 600-seat pavilion adjacent to the symphony center at Federal and Chestnut streets in downtown Youngstown. The total estimated cost of the project is $4.8 million plus architectural and engineering fees, and the estimated completion date is next fall.
UMahoning River Clean-up Local Match: $35 million local match in addition to the federal share of $65 million to provide for remediation and dredging of heavily contaminated portions of the river extending from Trumbull County through Mahoning County to the Pennsylvania border; roughly 33 miles of dredging.
UHenry H. Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown: $1.6 million for physical improvements to the interior and exterior of the facility and purchase of equipment.
UYoungstown Community Health Center in Youngstown (Ohio Northeast Health Systems Inc.): $1.5 million for new facility construction near Youngstown State University. Officials say a conservative estimate for the entire facility is approximately $6 million.
UMahoning Valley Sanitary District, 1181 Ohltown-McDonald Road, Mineral Ridge: $9.8 million for various improvements, repairs and a standpipe.
UColumbiana County Port Authority: $1.2 million for the acquisition of high-speed fiber-optic lines and to construct a network operations center at the port authority's World Trade Park in Leetonia.
UOhio/Pennsylvania Center for Aviation Technology to be built at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport: $1.2 million to develop classroom space. The total project cost is set at $4.4 million.
ULittle Squaw Creek Interceptor: $1 million to construct a sanitary sewer along Belmont Avenue in Liberty and Vienna townships.
USoutheast Water District Improvements: $900,000 to put in a waterline along Niles Vienna Road and Smith Stewart Road in Vienna Township.
UYoungstown State University: $8.4 million for steam distribution, technology upgrades, masonry restoration and campus development.
More effort
Lawmakers say they'll be pushing especially hard for funding for the area after Mahoning County received only $1.5 million in community-project funding in the last two-year, $1 billion-plus capital bill adopted in 2002. Trumbull and Columbiana counties received no community-project funding in the last capital bill.
Most of the money in the capital bill goes for construction, renovation and maintenance projects at state colleges and universities, mental-health and retardation facilities, state government buildings and state parklands.
A certain amount of money -- about $90 million in the last capital bill -- is usually reserved for community projects such as sports stadiums, arenas and theaters.
The projects are paid for mainly by loans taken out through the sale of bonds, some of which are retired with general state revenues.