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Theater site to become parking lot
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Theater site to become parking lot
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
A long-vacant and dilapidated downtown building soon will be sold to the city for $80,000.
After the former Paramount Theatre is owned by the city, Youngstown plans to seek about $750,000 from the state to remove asbestos and demolish the building except its facade, said city Finance Director David Bozanich.
And then?
The land at West Federal and North Hazel streets will become yet another downtown parking lot.
Bozanich said the area could be used in the future for outdoor concerts and other entertainment events, or possibly an attractive space for a retail business or restaurant.
On Wednesday, city council will consider authorizing the board of control to buy the 92-year-old building. The city administration has a verbal deal with the owners of the building — including Louis Frangos, its majority owner who owns several downtown properties — to buy the Paramount for $80,000, Bozanich said. Frangos confirmed the purchase price.
The building has been vacant for more than 30 years and sits in the heart of the city’s downtown.
“It’s a blighted area that needs attention. It sits in the gateway area between [Youngstown State University] and downtown,” Bozanich said.
It’s also a “safety hazard” with holes in the roof and pieces of the structure falling down at times, he said.
“It’s in pretty bad shape,” Frangos said. “It doesn’t make sense just to hold it for years and wait for it to be rehabilitated.”
To restore it as a theater would cost about $10 million, city officials estimate.
Frangos, of Cleveland, purchased the 9,510-square-foot building with Grande Venues of Wheaton, Ill. — under the name of Liberty-Paramount Theatre LLC — in April 2006 for $79,900. The agency spent about $30,000 in designs and a viability study, Bozanich said. Frangos said it was closer to $80,000.
“We explored many options to rehabilitate the building, and we’ve come to the realization that without a lot of assistance, it can’t be done,” Frangos said.
It should take about a year to buy the property, do a feasibility study on what to do with the building, obtain the state money and determine how to abate and demolish it, Bozanich said. It would be another six months to actually do the asbestos abatement and demolition, he said.
“It’s pretty much the last eyesore on the block,” Bozanich said.
The city would retain the building’s facade that fronts West Federal Street as well as the metal frame, which is all that’s left of the theater’s marquee, he said.
The building opened in 1918 as the Liberty Theater and reopened about 10 years later as the Paramount. It closed more than 30 years ago.