Engineers to decide soon if Kress building stays

By Harold Gwin

A local businessman has expressed interest in being part of the restoration project.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp. should know soon if the vacant Kress building on West Federal Street can be saved.

Dave Kosec, CIC’s development program manager, told the CIC board of directors Tuesday that, with the warm weather approaching, engineering surveys of the three-story building’s structural integrity will be done, perhaps getting started this week.

The hope is that the shell of the building can be saved while the entire interior is gutted, Kosec said.

The CIC is looking at Clean Ohio Grant funds as a source of revenue to finance the restoration of the 30,000-square-foot building. Just what that might cost remains to be determined.

“We don’t want to take Kress down,” he said, noting that there is a downtown businessman — whom he declined to identify — interested in being a part of the restoration of the structure, perhaps with partial or even full ownership. That individual has some retail and office businesses that could occupy the building, Kosec told the board.

The building has a steel skeleton with a brick veneer that appear, on the surface, to be in good shape. An engineering examination will determine if they remain structurally sound and what the building restoration might cost. That could happen this week, he said.

If the walls aren’t sound, the building will likely be razed, he said.

The wooden-truss roof and wooden-truss floors have partially collapsed and can’t be salvaged, and the goal would be to create a shell building that can be redeveloped into usable space, Kosec said.

“We still think it’s worth trying to save,” said Tom Humphries, board president.

“We do have people that are interested in that property,” he said, characterizing it as “serious interest.”

The building has been empty since the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, restoration of the Semple building on West Federal Street continues as part of the $2.75 million Tech Block 3 project, Kosec said.

The fa ßade work, which will feature a glass and steel front, is under way, and bids should go out next week for renovation of the basement and first-floor areas. Bids for the second and third floors will go out by the end of April, he said.

The plan is to prepare that space for occupancy by high-tech companies. Each floor contains 9,000 square feet of space, Kosec said.

A portion of the demolished State Theatre, taken down as part of the Tech Block project, that fronts on Boardman Street will be filled with soil and then paved as a 30-space parking lot. It should open by May, Kosec said.

The theater fa ßade on Federal Street remains intact and will be part of any development of the property, he said.

In other business, the board voted to sell the Mahoning County Children Services building on West Federal Street to the county for $10.

The county paid for the construction of the building five years ago and the CIC donated the land for the project, said Atty. Edwin Romero.

The development plan always called for the ownership of the building to eventually go to the county, he said, although the land beneath it will remain in the CIC’s possession.

Part of the sales agreement stipulates that CIC will retain a lease for the second floor of the building, which it, in turn, leases to the state Workers’ Compensation Bureau. That floor links by an overhead enclosed walkway to the nearby Voinovich Government Center.

gwin@vindy.com