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Youngstown to award contract for Exal site
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
The city will award a contract of up to $2.7 million as early as July to a company to build roads and utility lines at the potential site of an Exal Corp. expansion, Finance Director David Bozanich said.
City council will vote Wednesday on an ordinance authorizing the board of control to advertise for a contractor for the project at a 61-acre site at the city-owned Salt Springs Industrial Park.
Exal has considered a $44 million expansion project for at least 18 months, but hasn’t made a final decision.
The company’s president said in February that he was confident construction on the new facility could begin this year.
Exal, which makes aluminum cans and bottles, has two plants at the city’s Performance Park Business Park on Poland Avenue that employ 400.
Those two would stay open, and the plant at the Salt Springs Road location would employ an additional 400 workers.
The city received about $5 million from the state’s Job Ready Sites program in 2009 and spent $1.4 million to buy the land in April 2009 from LaFarge North America Inc.
If all goes according to schedule, the contract could be awarded in mid- to late July with the improvement project taking three months to complete, Bozanich said.
Even if Exal doesn’t move ahead with its plans, the city would have an ideal location for another project at that site, he said.
Also Wednesday, council will consider purchasing the long-closed Paramount Theatre at 138 W. Federal St. for up to $80,000.
An appraisal done for the city states the property is worth $85,000, Bozanich said.
If council gives the go-ahead, the city’s board of control would negotiate a purchase deal with the property’s owner, Liberty Paramount Theatre. The city already has a tentative deal to buy the land for $80,000.
The company, with Louis Frangos of Cleveland as its majority owner, bought the building for $79,900 in April 2006.
The city would seek state funding to demolish the building, except its facade, and use the space as a free parking lot for those paying water and wastewater bills at the nearby city hall, Bozanich said.
The city will use money from its water and wastewater funds, rather than its general fund, to buy the land because of the property’s eventual use, Bozanich said.
Council will also consider legislation Wednesday to spend $50,000 in water and wastewater funds for a program to encourage urban farming and alternative energy.
Global Green USA, an environmental nonprofit organization, helped raise $150,000 for the program.
The goal is to use the $200,000 to get the program started and attract other investors, said Mayor Jay Williams.
“This will allow us to use the city’s vacant land more productively,” he said.
The first project is a vegetable farm on the city’s South Side, he said.