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Youngstown council to consider $200,000 funding of institute
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider an ordinance today to provide $200,000 to help fund a portion of the $70 million National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) that will be based at 236 W. Boardman St. in downtown Youngstown.
On Tuesday, the Youngstown Initiative Committee voted to give $20,000 to the Youngstown Business Incubator, which is overseeing the institute, to help offset a portion of the $53,615 being spent to build the NAMII headquarters. The work started a month ago and should be mostly done by Sept. 27, said Barbara Ewing, chief operating officer of the incubator.
Also, the city has agreed to provide $230,000 worth of water and wastewater improvement work for the project.
White House officials came to Youngstown last month to announce the $70 million project with $30 million of the cost coming from a U.S. Department of Defense grant. About 60 private and public entities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including the city of Youngstown and Youngstown State University, are providing the remaining $40 million for this.
This proposal beat out 12 others.
The institute will develop additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, which will affect a range of industries including defense, aerospace and automotive.
Also Tuesday, the Youngstown Initiative Committee agreed to give $20,000 to Friends Roastery, a coffee business opening in November at the new Erie Terminal Place. Erie is a downtown apartment building at 112 W. Commerce St.
Friends Roastery is investing about $380,000 in its business on the ground floor of Erie.
The initiative program provides forgivable loans from the city’s general-fund budget for projects looking to expand or locate in Youngstown. After three years, if the business is in compliance with what it promised the city it would do, the loan becomes a grant.