Notes to be sold to buy jobs-center building

The Park Porter building has passed all of its inspections.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners have created a funding mechanism to complete the purchase of the Park-Porter building and an adjacent parking lot downtown.
They approved the sale of $725,000 in notes Wednesday for acquiring the building -- what they say is the last step before starting to plan for the building's use as home of the county's Department of Job and Family Services and One-Stop job training facility.
The county will receive proposals by April 3 from architects wishing to draw a preliminary layout of the offices.
Phillips/Sekanick Architects of Warren was hired March 10 to perform a final walk-through of the building. It passed that inspection with no problems, said Tony Carson Jr., county administrator. The building passed earlier inspections for asbestos and structural soundness.
Commissioner Paul Heltzel said the county will not be adding floors to the building, as had been proposed earlier by David Zofko, the county's chief building official.
Architect Bruce Sekanick advised the commissioners that purchasing land and building additional space there would be less expensive than adding floors to Park Porter, Heltzel said.
Commissioner James Tsagaris said he believes that the building is large enough to house J & amp;FS and the One-Stop office as well as allow the Veterans Services office to move back in once renovations are complete. Veterans Services has offices there now.
Dissension
Commissioner Dan Polivka voted against buying the building in November for $699,500 and voted no again Wednesday on the financing. Polivka has said he opposes the Park Porter building because renovation costs will be between $4 million and $6 million and because the building has insufficient parking.
Heltzel said an architect has estimated the combined cost of buying and renovating the building will be about $3 million. J & amp;FS is now on South Park Avenue and One-Stop is now on West Market Street. Park Porter is at 280 N. Park Ave.
In total, commissioners Wednesday approved the sale of $11.5 million worth of notes for a variety of projects.
New waterline
Among the largest is $2.2 million for building a substation and a waterline mostly in Vienna Township. The project will eventually bring water from Meander Reservoir via Niles to the southeastern part of the county.
County Sanitary Engineer Gary Newbrough has said the six-mile waterline will run from the substation near a water tank in the Deer Trail neighborhood at the corner of Stillwagon and Niles-Vienna roads in Niles, six miles east along Niles-Vienna Road to Smith-Stewart Road, and east to state Route 193.
Newbrough said when the construction is complete around year's end, it will allow for water to be provided by Niles to three Trumbull County water districts that will then merge into one known as the Southeast Water District.
Tom Holloway, Mahoning Valley Sanitary District director, attended to support the commissioners in a lawsuit filed against the board early this month by Aqua Ohio Inc. The complaint centers on what entity will provide water to that southeast area in the next 10 years.
The complaint filed by the private water supplier in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court asks the court to order the county to stop favoring public bulk water suppliers over private sources. MVSD is a public water supplier that sells bulk water to Niles and Youngstown.
runyan@vindy.com