DOWNTOWN WARREN 2 festivals will move to Perkins Park

For almost 30 years the project has been planned to eliminate flooding.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Downtown's two major outdoor summer festivals will be moving from Courthouse Square to the amphitheater and promenade in Perkins Park next year because of sewer construction, Mayor Michael O'Brien said.
The African American Heritage Festival in June and the Italian American Heritage Festival in August, which have traditionally used Courthouse Square, will be in Perkins Park.
Vendors at the park lining the promenade have electricity, water and sewer hookups available to them, the mayor said.
"They're making plans right now on the layout for both festivals," O'Brien said of festival organizers. "They're doing their mapping now where the different displays are going to be."
"The entertainment can be right in the amphitheater itself, and the vendors can be along the promenade and throughout the park," he noted. "There are enough utility hookups to serve the vendors and the entertainers."
Separating sewers
The $3.9 million 15-month construction project, funded by an Ohio Water Development Authority loan, will separate storm and sanitary sewers in the city's north end, downtown and part of its east side.
It will also eliminate four overflows, where untreated sewage flows into the Mahoning River after heavy rains, said Gary W. Shaffer, city sewer systems engineer. "We will have no more overflows in the City of Warren," Shaffer said.
"This will alleviate a lot of flooding," downtown and beyond, the mayor said. "Historically, because there was only one sewer for sanitary and storm water, when we had a heavy rain, that would get full," and the sewer would back up into homes and businesses, the mayor explained.
The separation project will eliminate sewer backups and modernize the system, he added. The combined storm and sanitary sewers were built between the 1890s and 1950s.
"You're substantially increasing the whole capacity of the sewer system, which is going to reduce the likelihood of flooding," Tom Angelo, city water pollution control director.
It will also curtail the amount of rainwater going unnecessarily to the sewage treatment plant, Shaffer said.
Longtime planning
The project has been planned for almost 30 years, but it was delayed for lack of funding, Angelo said. City officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the project in downtown's Monument Park on Monday morning.
Construction will not include new sanitary sewers. Instead, sanitary sewers with all their current tap-ins will remain, and new storm sewers will be built in most areas, resulting in significant cost-savings, Angelo said.
The work, being done by Utility Contracting Inc. of Youngstown, began three weeks ago in the north end and is ahead of schedule because of recent excellent weather, Shaffer said. The work in the north end is already about 90 percent complete, he said.
West Market Street is now being saw-cut in front of the Trumbull County Courthouse, where the job will be suspended for the Oct. 30 Halloween Parade and the Christmas shopping season. The downtown work will resume after the holidays, Shaffer said.
The downtown work should be completed by July, but Shaffer said he couldn't guarantee that.
milliken@vindy.com