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ITAM Post 3 will become Giovanni’s restaurant, lounge and catering business
YOUNGSTOWN
The home of the former Italian American War Veterans Post 3 has been sold for the minimum bid in a sheriff’s sale to the man who filed the foreclosure lawsuit against it and who plans to reopen the building as a restaurant, lounge and catering business.
John Zeoli of Canfield, who was the sole bidder, bought the building Tuesday for $160,000. The 1976-vintage building at 115 S. Meridian Road was appraised at $240,000.
Zeoli was owed $82,000 for a mechanic’s lien for unpaid renovations to the building in 2010 and $2,000 for his tools and supplies which went missing from the building.
Zeoli said he will have to invest $250,000 to renovate the building, including improvements to the floors, ceilings, plumbing, roof, air conditioning and parking lot. He said he hopes to reopen the building by Easter under the name “Giovanni’s Catering.” However, he said: “When you open the doors, it has to be done right.”
The premises is licensed to serve alcoholic beverages seven days a week.
“You bid on the building because, when someone owes you money, if you don’t bid on it, you’re not going to get it,” Zeoli said, explaining why he made his bid.
Some $418,319 in debt had built up over more than a decade on the 12,559-square-foot social hall, which occupies a 3.23-acre site, including, in priority of payment order, $133,736 in real estate taxes, $196,341 in IRS liens, $4,242 in state liens and the mechanic’s lien.
In its heyday in the 1970s and ’80s, the post had more than 700 members and was the largest Italian American War Veterans post in the nation, according to Patrick Fusillo of Youngs-town, the last commander of the now-defunct post.
When it closed, it had fewer than 100 members, 75 percent of them in their 80s, he said.
Dr. Dominic Bitonte of Columbiana, a retired dentist and former post medical officer, attributed the post’s financial problems to declining membership as World War II veterans aged and died off and to poor management.
Dr. Bitonte, 88, is a World War II and Korean War veteran.
The post was forced to close when its charter was revoked in August 2011 by the ITAM’s national headquarters in Chicago for alleged mismanagement of the post, said Fusillo, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, who became post commander in September 2010.
Fusillo said the post might have survived had more of an effort been made to recruit veterans of more recent wars as members.