43
Parking deck to reopen
Photo
The A-1 Parking Deck in downtown Youngstown will reopen Wednesday after its owner spent $186,730 on improvements, primarily to the interior. The city condemned the building in March because of its poor and unsafe condition.
YOUNGSTOWN
A downtown parking deck condemned by the city in March because of its poor and unsafe condition is to reopen Wednesday.
The owner of the A-1 Parking Deck at 23 W. Boardman St. spent $186,730 for AO Construction and Restoration to make the repairs, primarily to the interior, required by the city to lift the condemnation order.
AO repaired five columns and 14 beams as well as removed loose concrete from the exterior of the parking deck, said Angel Ortiz, owner of the Boardman company making the repairs.
“We’ve finished the interior repairs and the inside is all ready to open,” he said. “All five floors are in compliance.”
Yeshohua Weider of Brooklyn, N.Y., who owns A-1, said, “We’re opening, and the place looks beautiful.”
The 200-space, five-story parking deck has security cameras and an elevator as well as space for businesses on the ground floor, he said.
Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public works department, said the interior repair work returns the deck to a “safe condition. We want to see the deck reopen. We want to see the business reopen and we want to see people use the parking deck. But we want it if it is safe. The required repairs are completed. The most critical phase has been completed.”
It will be two more months before all of the exterior work is finished but the city had required only the removal of the loose concrete for the deck to reopen, Ortiz said. The exterior work primarily is concrete replacement, which doesn’t affect the safety of the deck, he said.
Weider hired AO in May to do the work. That came a month after Weider said he couldn’t afford the improvements.
A November 2010 inspection by I.A. Lewin, P.E. and Associates, a Cleveland firm hired by Weider, stated immediate repairs to the beams and corroded columns were needed. That inspection occurred at the request of the city after portions of the building’s exterior fell onto the street.
But any follow-up by city officials to make sure the work was done fell through the cracks until Mayor Charles Sammarone started asking questions this past March about the condition of the building.
The city condemned the deck March 15 because the building posed an “imminent danger” to the public, city officials said at the time.
Other improvement work is needed to the building, Ortiz said, but it’s not mandated by the city, and it will be Weider’s decision whether it gets done.
That work includes ceiling repairs and painting the floors, he said. If Weider wants that work done, it would take place next spring, Ortiz said.
When asked about the cost for that work, Ortiz said it would be more expensive than the $186,730 project.
A-1 offers designated parking places in the deck to customers for $37 a month. Each customer can use that specific spot at all times, Weider said.
When the city condemned the deck, it also shut down a bail-bondsman business and the Wig Warehouse, a downtown fixture for decades.
The bail bondsman is back in business, but the Wig Warehouse is gone.
Weider is looking for a company interested in the former Wig Warehouse location as well as about four or five businesses to occupy available ground-floor office space.
Weider bought the building in 2009 for $200,000.