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Space leased at Federal Place
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
The city has signed a three-year contract with an Akron-based construction and project management firm to open an office in the Youngstown-owned 20 Federal Place.
The board of control approved the contract Thursday with G. Stephens Inc., a minority-owned company, to occupy 1,004 square feet of space at the former Phar-Mor Centre at 20 W. Federal St. in the city’s downtown.
The contract calls for the firm to pay no rent for the first year, $3.50 per square foot ($3,514 a year) in the second year, and $4 a square foot ($4,016 a year) in the third year. Also, the company must pay $1.75 per square foot ($1,757 a year) for maintenance fees.
It is not uncommon for the city to offer free rent for a year to get a company to come to 20 Federal Place, said T. Sharon Woodberry, Youngstown’s economic- development director.
G. Stephens Inc. started in Akron in 1992, and has since opened offices in Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo.
“The company is well- established in the Cleveland and Akron markets,” said Mayor Jay Williams, chairman of the board of control. “We’ve had a dearth of minority engineering firms” in the Mahoning Valley.
The new office should be ready in a few months, Woodberry said.
Also Thursday, the board agreed to accept a $91,318 grant from the federal Appalachian Regional Commission to install broadband access at its Ohio Works and Riverbend business parks.
The city has to match that amount dollar for dollar and plans to do so next year when the project starts, said Finance Director David Bozanich, a board-of-control member.
There are about 25 to 30 companies in the two business parks that would benefit from the project, he said.
Those companies will be charged a fee from the city for the broadband use that would reimburse the city the money it’s paying as the local match, Bozanich said.