Consultant firm offers ideas for vacant homes in Warren

By Ed Runyan

The city hopes to address the oversupply of vacant homes with Neighborhood Stabilization money.

WARREN — As a result of losing 30 percent of its population in the past 35 years, the city needs to demolish numerous vacant houses and replace some of them with condominiums.

It also should encourage more dining and entertainment venues downtown, renovate the historic Robins Theater and encourage expansion of the under-served leisure-goods business segment.

These and other suggestions were part of a market study turned over to city officials in recent weeks by Boulevard Strategies, a Columbus consultant firm that is helping with a larger city redevelopment plan.

Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien says the goals of the plan, expected to be complete in about four months, are almost identical to Youngstown’s 2010 Plan but will address what Warren needs to do over the next 10 to 20 years.

“The whole purpose of the study is to right-size our community and identify our strengths and weaknesses and where we want to be,” O’Brien said.

The market study was the first part of the project — explaining some of the trends that led to the city’s current population, housing, retail, commercial and industrial statistics.

The city’s main planning consultant, the Poggemeyer Design Group of Bowling Green, will take the project from there and offer ideas on how to improve things, O’Brien said. The cost for the entire analysis will be $180,000.

One of the biggest problems in this city of 45,000 is the number of vacant homes.

Since 1990, the city has accumulated an average of 93 vacant homes per year, leading to an estimated current total of 3,173.

One reason Warren’s problem is worse than some areas, the study said, is because the city has demolished only about 30 homes per year while seeing the number of “households” — a statistical term measuring individuals, couples or families — drop by 120 per year.

Warren had 27 percent of Trumbull County households in 1970. The city now has just 20 percent.

Michael Keys, the city’s community development director, said the $1.4 million the city will get from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program will help the city tear down 60 to 70 homes per year through 2013.

Condominiums are the fastest-growing segment of the residential real estate market and would draw to Warren “empty nesters” (parents whose children left home); singles and couples in their 20s and 30s; and single and divorced women in their 30s and 40s without children, the study said.

Keys said another important part of the study dealt with the need for the city to promote the development of top-of-the-line office space in the downtown area.

The city doesn’t have too much office space, the study said, but it needs to appeal more to the 30 percent of U.S. workers who use their mind for a living, especially creative high-tech entrepreneurs. The city’s fledgling efforts to build a business incubator are a step in that direction, O’Brien said.

O’Brien said the study makes important mention of the need for an anchor store or stores in the downtown.

The study noted that a typical Wal-Mart has 225,000 square feet and sales of about $60 million a year, while downtown Warren has about 90,000 square feet of retail space and sales of about $25 million per year.

One of the greatest opportunities for retail growth in Warren as well as in the entire county is in leisure goods, meaning consumer electronics, computers, sporting goods, books and magazines, music, media and software, toys and games, hobby and crafts and pet supplies, the study said.

runyan@vindy.com