YSU trustees OK land swap

Groundbreaking for the new college of business building is set for next fall.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown State University Board of Trustees has approved a land swap that will give the university a piece of land it needs for a new building, and give the city property it needs to extend Hazel Street.

The university will pay the city $200,000 for the Earl Calvin apartment complex at 224 N. Phelps St. while the city will pay YSU $164,000 for property at 127 Lincoln Ave. The latter propey currently houses the university’s mail room.

Atty. Greg Morgione, YSU associate general counsel, said the transaction will require the university to find other space for its mail room.

The apartment complex on Phelps Street will be razed to make way for a new $34 million Williamson College of Business Administration at the university.

Groundbreaking on that project is tentatively set for next September or October as part of YSU’s Centennial Celebration.

The Phelps Street site is nearly the last piece YSU needs for the project, Morgione said, explaining that the university still has to buy a piece of the former Cherol property on Rayen Avenue, which is now owned by the city.

Other parcels for the business college project are already in place, he said. That includes some land along Phelps Street from the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown and the former Downie auto service property at Wood and Phelps streets.

The Hazel Street extension project is a joint city-university effort to improve YSU’s link with the downtown area.

Hazel currently runs from downtown only as far north as Wood Street, stopping two blocks form the main part of campus.

The plan is to extend it at an angle from its current endpoint those two blocks, crossing Rayen and ending on Lincoln.

The city will now have control of all but one parcel of land it needs for the extension.

Efforts to buy Grenga Machine & Welding Co. property at 128 W. Rayen Ave. have hit a stumbling block as owner Joseph Grenga has refused all offers to sell.

The city has indicated that it may file an eminent domain claim in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to take the property, and Grenga has warned that he will file a counterclaim if that happens.

Meanwhile, the city has placed $205,000 into an escrow account that would be used to buy the property, a preliminary step in the eminent domain process.

gwin@vindy.com