Sale of bonds to fund apartment upgrades

The long-awaited Lakeshore sewer project is going out to bid.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

CHAMPION — Trumbull County commissioners approved selling $9.5 million worth of bonds on behalf of a Connecticut company that will begin, within a couple of weeks, to spend $15 million to acquire and upgrade the government-subsidized Royal Mall Apartments in Niles.

The commissioners approved the bond sale Thursday. They met in the new SCOPE senior citizen center, opening today in the Champion Plaza off state Route 45 in Champion.

Robert D. Labes, an attorney for the bonding company handling the sale, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, said the commissioners’ participation in raising the money allows the apartments’ new owners, Vesta Corp., to secure low-interest financing and federal tax credits worth $5.5 million.

The 168-apartment complex was cited for 89 interior housing code violations last winter and has been the source of numerous police calls in recent years.

Labes said the new owners hope the renovations — totaling about $25,000 per apartment — will improve the residents’ sense of pride in their homes and encourage them to take good care of them.

Labes said the change in ownership and construction will begin soon after the bond sale is completed next week. Current residents will not be relocated outside of the complex, only moved inside of it as their unit comes up for renovation.

Commissioners Frank Fuda and Paul Heltzel, both of Niles, said the improvements at Royal Mall are long overdue.

Other business

In other business, commissioners approved resolutions authorizing two Bazetta Township sewer projects and allowing the projects to go out for bid.

Among them is the long-anticipated Lakeshore Drive project, which will provide sewers to about 60 properties on Lakeshore and West Lake drives on the southwestern edge of Mosquito Lake.

The neighborhood was identified many years ago as a source of septic pollution entering Mosquito Lake, the source of Warren’s drinking water. The problem has been noted on numerous occasions by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the county health department as one of the county’s worst unsewered areas.

Paul Carlson, spokesman for the neighborhood, said he hoped the construction of the project will go more quickly than the planning phase. He noted that last summer after the public hearing on the project, completion was expected in early 2007.

Gary Newbrough, county sanitary engineer, said the delay in the project had to do with residents’ requests that a pump station be moved to a different part of the project.

The Lakeshore project, being paid for by the residents, will cost $1.7 million.

Newbrough estimated the Lakeshore project would be completed in spring or summer 2008.

Commissioners also agreed to proceed with the $2 million East Central Bazetta sewer project, which will serve property owners on state Routes 305 and 46, Morrow, Williams, Circle and Northview drives and McCleary Jacoby Road and Wilmar Street.

runyan@vindy.com