CIC urges hiring MS to prepare for building

The agency will use $2.75 million in state funds for the project.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

CITY HALL REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — It will probably cost more than $1 million to remove asbestos from three buildings and demolish two of them to create a high-tech facility and parking lot on West Federal Street.

That’s the preliminary assessment of John P. Pierko, vice president of environmental services for Youngstown-based MS Consultants.

The staff of the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp. is recommending the agency’s board hire MS for $44,531 to prepare documents needed to hire a company to do the asbestos abatement and demolition work. The CIC, a downtown redevelopment agency, will consider the recommendation at its meeting next Tuesday.

The CIC plans to use $2.75 million it received from the state in December 2006 to turn the Wells Building into a high-tech facility and to demolish the Armed Forces Building and the State Theatre, with the hope of saving the latter’s historic façade.

The buildings are on the south side of West Federal Street with Wells on the corner of Hazel Street and the two others just east of it.

The agency also wants to obtain state and/or federal funds to renovate the Semple Building on West Federal, just east of Home Savings and Loan.

But the Wells, Armed Forces and State Theatre work will come first, said Reid Dulberger, the CIC’s acting president.

The documents should be ready in about two months, Pierko said.

This project is part of the CIC’s “tech-block” program that already includes the Youngstown Business Incubator. The second phase, construction of the Taft Technology Center, is about 30 percent to 40 percent complete and on schedule to be finished by its March 15, 2008 deadline.

skolnick@vindy.com