Thursday, October 30, 2014
YOUNGSTOWN
Financing should be finalized by the second week in November to start the long-awaited rehabilitation of the Wells Building in the city’s downtown.
That’s according to Dave Kosec, project manager of the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp., the nonprofit downtown property agency that owns the building.
Kosec said Wednesday after a CIC meeting that Strollo Architects is finalizing its financing with Huntington Bank, and as part of the deal, the CIC will sell the 97-year-old building to the firm for $1.
Strollo has to start the improvement project, estimated to cost about $5 million, by Nov. 21 or it will lose its $1 million state tax credit, said Kosec, who added that he thinks improvements will start in time.
The project, proposed more than a year ago, would take about nine months to finish.
The plan is for Strollo Architects, currently housed at 20 Federal Place, to use the ground floor of the 23,564-square-foot Wells Building, 201 W. Federal St., as its office and have 12 apartments on the building’s upper three floors.
The project stalled for months with Strollo unable to get a loan related to national lawsuits regarding government tax credits. In May, the city agreed to loan $700,000 to Strollo with Youngstown in the first-lien position on the $1 million the company is to receive in tax credits, which are given upon the completion of the project.
The building, which is at the southeast corner of West Federal and South Hazel streets, last was used about 30 years ago as an Armed Forces recruiting facility.
Tied into the Wells project is what the CIC wants to do with a fenced-in hole just west of that structure. The agency wants to turn the hole into a parking lot, but can’t do that until the Wells Building improvements are done.
The hole has been there since 2008 when the CIC demolished the Armed Forces Building and the State Theatre, keeping the latter’s facade intact.