Friday, May 22, 2009
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Grenga
Grenga bought the building for $95,800 in 2001 and stored older machines at the Rayen Avenue site.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — The city and Joseph Grenga settled their dispute before a jury could deliberate on what the city should pay Grenga for the property it seized from him by eminent domain.
The agreement reached Thursday afternoon calls for the city to pay Grenga $235,000, including $225,000 for the property at 128 W. Rayen Ave., and $10,000 for moving expenses.
Grenga also agreed to drop a separate $500,000 lawsuit he had filed against the city concerning the taking of his 10,515-square-foot building, which had been a Grenga Machine and Welding Co. storage building.
In the lawsuit he agreed to drop, Grenga accused the city of violating his right to due process and of causing him financial losses in its quest to take the century-old, 10,515-square-foot building, which he purchased in 2001 for $95,800.
The Vindicator visited the property last December, and found no heat or electricity there. Grenga used a flashlight to navigate his way through the building.
He said then that he bought itg to meet his company’s need for more space, and wanted to build an office there for his company and another owned by a family member.
William D’Avignon, the city’s community development agency director, said then that Grenga lacked the industrial zoning he would need to operate a machine shop or repair machines there.
The site is zoned institutional, and D’Avignon said the city planning commission wasn’t likely to change the zoning to industrial.
The city seized the former Grenga property to enable a northward extension of Hazel Street in conjunction with Youngstown State University’s $34.3 million business school, for which construction began this spring.
The city, which received a writ of possession from the court, plans to demolish the former Grenga building next week.
“We achieved a fair and equitable resolution of a highly contentious issue,” said Grenga’s lawyer, John Shultz.
“Both parties reached a point where they felt that the frustrations were not only exhaustive, but nonproductive,” Shultz added.
“Mr. Grenga can get on with his life, and we can progress with the building of the roadway,” said Dan Pribich, deputy city law director.
“Mr. Grenga received fair compensation for his property, and the matter was resolved within the area of the appraisals,” he added.
An appraiser hired by the city said the property was worth $181,000, but an appraiser hired by Grenga pegged it at $375,000.
When the city filed suit to seize the property in January 2008, it deposited $205,000 in escrow with the court to buy the property, but Grenga rejected the city’s offer to buy it for that sum.
Magistrate Dennis J. Sarisky of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court presided over this week’s trial, in which the jury would have determined just compensation for Grenga.
Pribich said he did not know what the city has spent to date on the Cleveland lawyers it hired to represent the city in this case, and he did not know what it would cost to build the street extension.
Although Grenga and the city have settled their dispute, the city still faces a lawsuit filed last week by James Villani, owner of Pig Iron Press, 26 N. Phelps St., who seeks to block the street extension plan, saying the financially troubled city can’t afford to build the extension and hasn’t shown a need for it.