Plans to redevelop downtown Youngstown building are ‘sinking fast’

Plans to redevelop downtown Youngstown building are ‘sinking fast’

By DAVID SKOLNICK

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

After failing to receive state historic tax credits twice and other setbacks, the plans of the owner of an agency to revitalize the long-vacant Kress Building in the city’s downtown are essentially over.

“I haven’t raised the white flag yet, but I’m pretty close,” said Jimmy Sutman, owner and founder of the Purple Cat.

The agency provides job skills, daily living skills and recreational activities for about 125 mentally and physically impaired people headquartered at the downtown Rica Building, 117 S. Champion St.

It also operates out of the Pearl Street Mission on the city’s East Side and a 52-acre farm in Coitsville.

“Unfortunately, my ship is sinking as far as my involvement with” buying and relocating the Purple Cat’s main office to Kress at 111 W. Federal St. “We gave it a really good try and invested some money into it. But [nearly] everybody was very luke-warm on the governmental side towards the project; probably not even luke-warm, but on the cold side.”

Renovating the Kress Building, vacant since the early 1990s, would cost about $3.5 million to $5 million.

“Kress was a stretch and a gamble [financially] for me,” Sutman said. “It doesn’t look like we’re a player for the Kress Building.”

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.