Scaffolding to come down from downtown NCB building

YOUNGSTOWN — The scaffolding in front of the downtown National City Bank Building for more than a year will be removed shortly as the structure’s owner will spend more than $1 million to improve the exterior.

The scaffolding was put up on the Wick Avenue side of the building in summer 2008 when two pieces of granite on its exterior fell to the ground. No one was hurt.

Since then, Park South Development Co. LLC, a company that owns the building, had some work done to the exterior to secure the tile, said Anita Atheneos, the company’s Youngstown property manager.

Even so, the scaffolding remains.

“We felt it was unsafe,” she said.

The improvement work with construction will start shortly, Atheneos said today.

The rush is because the bank and the building are changing names.

PNC Bank purchased National City on Dec. 31, 2008. All National City Bank branches in the Valley will be renamed PNC on Nov. 9.

Without the improvements, the city’s design review committee wasn’t going to permit new PNC signs to be placed on the building’s exterior.

For the complete story, read Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com