Tuesday, December 29, 2015
By KALEA HALL
khall@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
This year, the Mahoning Valley dealt with job loss, cheered on the Chevrolet Cruze and saw growth in Youngstown.
Here are the top 10 business stories for 2015 as selected by Vindicator staff:
1 In 2015, the Valley witnessed firsthand what happens when the cost of oil drops. Global competition sparked a dramatic drop in the cost per barrel of oil to go from $100 or more in June 2014 down to below $40 this month.
Though OPEC members can turn a profit on cheap oil, U.S. producers have to work harder to do so. This translated to a cutback by producers, which caused companies that supply the producers to cut back.
Locally, Vallourec Star on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was the first local plant to make the impact known. Leaders at the plant, where steel pipe is produced for hydraulic fracturing, made several workforce cutbacks throughout the year. After Vallourec Star, the TMK
IPSCO pipe-threading plant in Brookfield laid off 10 percent of its workforce.
The local Parker Hannifin hydraulic-gear-pump plant in Youngstown then announced in October that it will close in the next 18 months. And just this month, Exterran leaders announced the local plant on Salt Springs Road, where oil and gas production equipment is fabricated, will close by the end of March.
Altogether, the cost of oil cost the Valley more than 380 jobs.
2 On June 24, the Valley’s car made its global debut in front of General Motors leaders, journalists from all over the world and many others at The Fillmore in Detroit.
The Lordstown-built next-generation Chevrolet
Cruze brought a more-sleek style, better technology and more safety features to the stage.
“Inspired by the spirit of Chevrolet, the 2016 Cruze represents everything today’s Chevrolet stands for: design, performance, and technology,” said Mary Barra, GM chief executive officer, at the event.
The new Cruze will hit dealerships in the spring and is expected to follow in the successful footprint of its predecessor, which has been on the market since late 2010.
The 4,500 workers at the GM Lordstown Assembly Plant have built more than 1.4 million Cruzes since its launch in September 2010.
3 The United Auto Workers contract negotiations with the Detroit Big Three was top news for months. After the union completed negotiations with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles U.S., it moved on to negotiations with GM – the biggest company of the three with 52,000 workers across 63 U.S. facilities.
The 1,400 members of UAW Local 1714, who work at the fabrication plant at GM Lordstown, and 2,800 to 3,000 members of UAW Local 1112, who work at the assembly plant in Lordstown, voted on the agreement for a new four-year contract and approved it Nov. 6.
The agreement came with pay increases across the workforce, traditional health care benefits for lower-tier workers and a stronger moratorium on outsourcing.
Though GM’s U.S. production workers OK’d the contract, skilled workers turned it down. Union leadership met with those workers to work through their concerns before the contract was ratified in November.
4 In March, after four votes turned down a new contract, Giant Eagle decided to cease operations at Tamarkin – a retail support center on Victoria Road in Austintown.
The former Tamarkin Co. was a frozen-food support center that supplied 427 Giant Eagle locations. About 200 were employed there.
The operations there were fully relocated to a third-party company after the labor dispute.
5 The U.S. Postal Service decided to bump the consolidation date for the Youngstown mail-processing center multiple times in 2015.
The center, located at 99 S. Walnut St., was supposed to close in July, but that was postponed. Then it was postponed again in July when the closure date was bumped indefinitely.
The Youngstown processing plant was supposed to be one of 82 USPS facilities across the country to be consolidated in 2015.
The affected employees at the plant where 122 work would be placed in new positions within a 50-mile radius.
6 After an 18-month investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation into Aerodynamics Inc., or ADI, the department gave the airline tentative approval to offer daily service between Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and Chicago.
The tentative order was issued Nov. 30 pending a 21-day comment period. Leaders at the airport hope to have the service in place by April.
7 The grand opening of the renovated Wick Tower was just one story where downtown Youngstown shined.
NYO Property Group took on the 18-month-long project to revitalize the Wick Tower at 34 W. Federal St.
The tower brings 35 apartments downtown and 14 extended-stay housing units. It also will bring a new restaurant downtown.
Also, the city hired an architectural firm in August to design plans for an amphitheater at the Covelli Centre, for a park along the Mahoning River and for ways to tie downtown to Mill Creek MetroParks to Youngstown State University.
8 This year, the Youngstown Business Incubator celebrated 20 years of helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses. The downtown incubator also added its fifth building to a growing campus.
In the spring, YBI took over The Vindicator’s 85-year-old downtown office building on the corner of Boardman Street and Vindicator Square downtown.
After it is remodeled, YBI plans to use the building as a startup space for additive manufacturing companies and graduate space for startup firms that have entered the market. The plan to take over and renovate the Vindicator building comes with a price tag of $5.5 million.
Also this year, YBI took the second-best incubator in the world title (UNI Global in Stockholm, Sweden, was first). Youngstown’s incubator took first place in the North America competition.
9 The Ohio Power Siting Board in September authorized Clean Energy Future-Lordstown to construct an 800-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant in the village.
The company plans to begin commercial operation by May 2018.
The project represents a construction investment of more than $850 million and will support about 1,026 related jobs in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
10 Earlier this month, Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley began work on an $18.6 million expansion project.
Phase 1 of the four-phase project will be completed by April 2017. Phase 1 includes a two-story, 51,000-square-foot expansion to Building A, renovations to portions of the building and creation of a new entrance for the Beeghly Campus. Overall, the project’s first phase will add 47 exam rooms.
No date has been set for starting the $20 million to $22 million Phase 2.
Some of the other stories considered for the top 10 list were:
Warren Steel Holdings, 4000 Mahoning Ave. NW, closed temporarily because of market challenges.
Farmers National Banc. Corp., the holding company for The Farmers National Bank of Canfield, completed two mergers this year – one with Tri-State 1st Banc Inc. and the other with National Bancshares Corp.
Robert Shroder announced his retirement as president and chief executive officer of Mercy Health Youngstown effective in February.