Can vacant Kress building downtown be saved?

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 which 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.

Read more in Wednesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com