City gets final OK to demolish property for expansion at YSU

By Peter H. Milliken

A jury trial to determine compensation begins May 20.

YOUNGSTOWN — A magistrate’s decision has cleared the way for the city to seize and demolish the Grenga Machine and Welding Co. storage building under eminent domain.

Dan Pribich, deputy city law director, said the decision allows the city to take possession of the building at 128 W. Rayen Ave., which the city plans to do on April 14. The city plans to have its contractor perform a pre-demolition assessment that day, he added.

At the end of a Friday hearing, Magistrate Daniel P. Dascenzo of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, denied building owner Joseph Grenga’s request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the city from altering or demolishing the building until the case is resolved.

The magistrate’s ruling came in a hearing concerning a $500,000 lawsuit, in which Grenga accuses the city of violating his right to due process and of causing him financial losses in the city’s quest to take his property.

The city will take and raze Grenga’s building to enable a northward extension of Hazel Street in conjunction with Youngstown State University’s new $34.3 million business school, for which construction will begin this spring.

When the city petitioned to take Grenga’s property in January 2008, it deposited $205,000 in escrow with the court.

Grenga rejected the city’s offer to buy the building for that sum, and a jury trial concerning the amount of compensation Grenga should receive for the building will begin May 20 before Magistrate Dennis J. Sarisky. Grenga bought the 10,515-square-foot building for $95,800 in 2001.

The city and Grenga have agreed, and Judge James C. Evans has ordered, that Grenga must remove all his machinery from the building by noon April 13, or it will be considered abandoned, and the city may dispose of it.

Judge Evans granted the city a writ of possession, which Grenga unsuccessfully appealed to the 7th District Court of Appeals.

Because it “appeared imminent” that the city would take possession of the building, Grenga agreed to remove his machinery, and he has begun doing so “to mitigate” his losses, Grenga’s lawyer, John Shultz explained.

“Mr. Grenga would not suffer irreparable injury if the injunction is not granted,” Magistrate Dascenzo ruled from the bench Friday. “Mr. Grenga has also failed to show that there is a substantial likelihood that he will prevail on the merits of this case,” Dascenzo added.

“It’s a pretextual taking, and they’re not extending Hazel Street,” Grenga said in the hearing. Instead, Grenga said he believes the city will give the land to YSU to create a parking lot after his building is demolished. “There’s no imminent need (for the city) to take that building,” Grenga said.

“Roads are considered to be of such public importance or exigency that they’re in the same paragraph as an emergency,” in state law, countered Anthony J. Coyne, one of the city’s Cleveland lawyers.