City weighs options for demolitions

By David Skolnick

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

City officials are looking at inexpensive options to demolish some of Youngstown’s vacant commercial buildings.

City council approved legislation Wednesday to authorize the board of control to seek proposals from contractors to take down empty commercial structures.

There are fewer than 400 vacant commercial buildings in the city that need to be demolished, Mayor Jay Williams said.

The city is in the process of identifying which buildings could come down at a minimal cost, Williams said. He declined to name some of those buildings.

But, he said, the buildings either “pose a danger or there are aesthetic problems at our gateways.”

Williams, whose administration is working with Councilman DeMaine Kitchen, D-2nd, on this plan, said the city is having preliminary talks with contractors and engineering firms about “which buildings have potential for demolition” at a low cost.

“There’s not a lot of details now,” Williams said Wednesday. “We’re considering potential scenarios for funding sources to facilitate commercial demolitions.”

Since Williams took office as mayor in January 2006, the city has demolished about 2,000 houses.

But only about two dozen commercial structures have come down since then, Williams said. That’s because the cost of taking down a commercial building is considerably more than demolishing a house, he said.