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City council to mull tax abatement for food store
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider legislation today supporting a 10-year, 75-percent real-property tax abatement for a full-service grocery store being built on the South Side.
The ordinance, if approved by council, would permit the city’s board of control to approve the abatement for a Bottom Dollar Food store at 621 W. Princeton Ave. in the Fosterville neighborhood.
Construction on the 18,279-square-foot supermarket is scheduled to begin shortly and be done by February 2012. The $4.72 million store would employ 10 full-time workers and 40 part-timers, according to the company’s tax-abatement application.
Over the 10-year period, the company would save $485,107 in real-property taxes and pay $161,702, according to its application.
The property is the location of the former Cleveland School and the adjacent Fosterville Park.
At council’s last meeting, May 18, its members approved a similar tax abatement for a Bottom Dollar Food store at 890 Midlothian Boulevard on the South Side at a former Big Lots.
That 18,249-square-foot store is expected to open in mid-November. The company is investing $6.52 million to $7.75 million for the store. Over 10 years, the company would pay $192,350 in real-property taxes and save $577,050.
These would be the discount grocery store’s first supermarkets in Ohio. Bottom Dollar Food, a subsidiary of Food Lion, has 47 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia.
The Youngstown stores are to be located in areas city officials call “food deserts” because those neighborhoods lack full-service supermarkets with residents primarily served by convenience stores.