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CIC official: Vacant Kress Building draws interest
YOUNGSTOWN — The vacant Kress Building on West Federal Street is in poor shape, but there is a business interested in locating there, says an official with a downtown property development agency that owns the structure.
Dave Kosec, development program manager for the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp., declined Tuesday to publicly disclose the business looking at the 89-year-old Kress Building.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first for the agency since May 26.
There have been numerous failed proposals for Kress in recent years. This one is “more serious than the others,” Kosec said.
The interested party already operates a “viable business. He’s exploring it and he’s serious about it. He’s hired an architect,” Kosec said.
The business owner plans to discuss his proposal with YCACIC officials in greater detail in early 2010 after he evaluates the building, Kosec said.
The 30,000-square-foot building’s steel frame is in decent shape, but the interior is beyond repair, YCACIC officials have said.
Kress is on the south side of West Federal Street, between Phelps and Hazel street and just east of the 7th District Court of Appeals building.
The western portion of the building was last occupied in September 2000 by the Wig Warehouse. That business relocated to West Boardman Street because of unsafe conditions at Kress.
Structural engineers at the time said the building was in danger of collapse and should be demolished because it’s a safety and fire hazard, according to Vindicator files.
In the last five years, YCACIC has heard numerous proposals for the downtown building.
The failed proposals included a Mahoning Valley sports museum and sports center; the home of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society [which instead relocated to the Harry Burt/Ross Radio Building]; and a multipurpose facility that was to include a banquet hall, a boxing and mixed martial-arts training location and housing.
“This is a current operating business and not a start-up,” Kosec said about the current business looking at Kress.
skolnick@vindy.com