4 vacant buildings targeted for razing in favor of parking

By David Skolnick

A committee rejected the parking lot design for the Realty Tower Apartments.

YOUNGSTOWN — Four vacant storefronts on West Boardman Street, near Youngstown City Hall and the Mahoning County administration building, are to be demolished by early September.

And after the 89-year-old buildings are gone, they’ll be replaced by a parking lot.

“There’s no market to rent [the buildings],” said John P. Coyne, whose Cleveland-based company, Coyne Investments Ltd., owns the property. “There’s a market for parking.”

Once the buildings, which total about 9,000 square feet, are demolished, the location will be paved and become a 29-space addition to a 23-space Ampco System Parking lot just west of it, Coyne said. Among Coyne’s many hats is vice president of business development for Ampco.

A cost estimate for the project hasn’t been revealed with July 31 the deadline to submit proposals to do the work, Coyne said.

There hasn’t been a tenant at any of the four business locations in at least a year. The empty storefronts last housed City Title Co., a bail bondsman, a law firm and Ampco, which moved to the city-owned 20 Federal Place. City Title is on Market Street.

Coyne Investment spent $213,500 to purchase the buildings a few years ago.

It was only a few weeks ago that MC Investments, another Cleveland business owned by Coyne, spent about $250,000 to demolish the Jolly Bar/Valley Hotel at 31 Spring Commons and a former bar at 309 W. Commerce St. The company spent $150,000 to buy the dilapidated buildings in December 2008.

Nine parking spots were added near the Jolly Bar and 17 spaces near the other location. The new spots were added to existing Ampco lots nearby.

The city’s design review committee approved Coyne’s proposal to take down the West Boardman Street structures and turn the space into a parking lot at its meeting Tuesday.

Committee members said they appreciate the work Coyne is doing to get rid of some of the downtown’s vacant and/or crumbling structures.

The committee oversees exterior work to buildings downtown and in surrounding areas.

While the committee gave its OK to Coyne’s project, it declined Tuesday to approve a plan for a fenced-in parking lot layout for the Realty Tower Apartments project.

The Frangos Group, which owns the 12-story building at 47 Central Federal St., wants the parking lot entrance/exit on South Champion St. with a 6-foot-high security fence and a 12-foot-wide security gate.

Committee members want the lot entrance to be bigger, at least 14 feet wide, and to see the parking space layout. Some members also expressed concern that there would be only one way to get in and out of the lot.

The lot would hold about 36 cars without any changes, said Bill Sperlazza, Frangos’ development project manager.

Sperlazza and Mark Taylor, Frangos’ chief financial officer, said they’d reconsider the design.

This parking lot design would cost about $70,000, Taylor said.

But if the revisions are too costly, the fenced-in lot would have to wait, he said.

Construction for the $8.4 million project is about 98 percent finished, Taylor said.

The apartments are finished; some ceiling work and installing light fixtures in the building’s common areas need to be done.

The construction phase was to be complete by mid- to late June. But construction progressed a bit slower than scheduled and won’t be done for another week or so, Taylor said.

Then there will be about three weeks worth of inspections and tests before the building can be occupied, he said.

The formerly vacant building will have 23 apartments ranging from 1,215 to 2,057 square feet. Rents are expected to range from $1,400 to $2,300 a month.

skolnick@vindy.com