Home Depot clears hurdle to build new store

A new video sign is set to be installed along state Route 46.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- Home Depot is a step closer to building a 102,513-square-foot store with an additional 27,988-square-foot garden center on Mahoning Avenue.
Thursday, the township board of zoning appeals voted unanimously to issue a conditional use permit for construction of the store. Home Depot still needs permits from the township zoning inspector and Mahoning County building inspector before work can begin.
The retailer was required to get the conditional use permit under the township zoning code because of the size of the store.
Terry Roswick, an associate with Greenberg Farrow, the Illinois-based architecture and engineering firm working on the project, said Home Depot hopes to start construction next spring and open the store by the end of 2005. The store would be located across from the Wilcox Road intersection with Mahoning Avenue, behind the Home Savings branch that is under construction.
It is expected to have between 100-150 employees and be the largest retail building constructed in the township since 1994, when the 126,236-square-foot Wal-Mart store opened on Mahoning Avenue.
Concerns
During Thursday's hearing, some board of zoning appeals members expressed concern that Home Depot would be storing trailers loaded with merchandise behind the store. The township zoning code prohibits trailers from being stored on property zoned for business.
Roswick said trailers would be stored on the Home Depot property until they could be unloaded, which would be at most a few days.
Country Green Drive resident Joe Foun also told the board Thursday that he was worried about noise from the store, and that a 600-foot buffer of trees between the store and his street could one day be developed. Township Zoning Inspector Michael Kurilla Jr. said the buffer land, as well as the Home Depot land, is owned by Gulch Ltd., which also owns the Austintown Plaza property.
Kurilla said the steep contour of the buffer property makes it unlikely that it would be developed. The property is divided by a ravine that runs through a 20-foot-deep ditch, he said.
Weston Center
The board also voted unanimously to allow the construction of a new video sign for the 68,000-square-foot Weston Center plaza that is under construction near the intersection of state Route 46 and Mahoning Avenue. The 8-by-5-foot sign, which will be located along state Route 46, will be able to display television-quality graphics, plaza developer Michael Camacci said.
Camacci said community groups will be able to use the sign to advertise events and for public service announcements.
The board also voted unanimously to allow medical helicopters to land at the 10,912-square-foot emergency and diagnostic facility that Humility of Mary Health Partners is building on Mahoning Avenue. Rodney Lamberson, an architect working on the project, said helicopters would land at the facility to pick up trauma patients and fly them to other facilities.
Lamberson said he expected helicopter landings to be rare, and noted that helicopters have landed at HMHP's Boardman facility twice in the last two years.
hill@vindy.com