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Work is set to improve Stambaugh windows
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The job should take four to eight weeks to complete.
YOUNGSTOWN — Work to install windows to the historic Stambaugh Building will begin next week.
Louis A. Frangos, co-owner of the East Federal Street building, along with top officials of his companies met in private for about 45 minutes Friday with city officials to discuss his plans. City officials, including Mayor Jay Williams, approved Frangos’ proposal and the time frame for completing the work.
After the meeting, Frangos said he would hire All American Window and Door, a Cleveland company, to repair windows and window sashes at Stambaugh and put them back in place.
If any of the windows are beyond repair, Plexiglas would be installed.
The work should cost about $75,000, he said.
The reinstallation will start Wednesday or Thursday and take four to eight weeks to complete.
Frangos had employees from his companies — USA Parking Systems Inc. and the Frangos Group — remove windows from the Stambaugh Building on May 28 without city permission.
This began after two windows fell from the rear of the building located in the heart of downtown.
City officials realized the windows were being removed June 5 when one crashed onto East Federal Street as Brenda Williams, the city’s chief building official, watched.
By then, 370 of the 531 windows on the upper 12 floors of the 13-story building were removed. The windows on the ground floor are in good condition and none was removed, she said.
The city stopped the work because the windows were removed without a city permit, approval from the city’s Design Review Committee, and because it created a danger to those walking near the building.
Frangos had originally wanted to replace the windows with plywood. But that was flatly rejected by the Design Review Committee and other city officials.
Fewer than 10 of the glass windows removed are beyond repair, Brenda Williams said.
As part of the agreement with the city, Frangos said the window reinstallation would begin on the building’s south and west sides. That would allow barricades put up by the city on June 5 to be removed, and to reopen that portion of the street in about three weeks, Williams said.
“We achieved what we set out to do with the windows going back into the building and protecting the public,” she said.
The mayor was also pleased with results.
“Our primary concern was getting it done and done correctly,” he said.
Also Friday, Judge Robert Milich of Youngstown Municipal Court agreed to postpone a trial until Aug. 22 for Jeff Hamm, USA Parking’s regional operations manager.
The city filed a third-degree misdemeanor charge June 5 against Hamm saying he violated the city code for failing to keep the building’s exterior surfaces in “good condition.”
With the improvement work starting next week, Anthony Farris, the city’s deputy law director, agreed to the postponement.
“We want to see compliance on it as we do with all our cases,” he said. “They have a tentative plan to bring the property into compliance.”
USA Parking Systems of Cleveland and Platia Square LLC of New York City purchased the 11,250-square-foot building for $1.15 million on March 6, 2006.