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Funeral home is putting up a fence to keep out those committing illegal activities
YOUNGSTOWN
Illegal activity – including drug sales and use, prostitution and public drunkenness – in the parking lot and near his business had the owner of the Sterling-McCullough Williams Funeral Home pondering a move away from its Belmont Avenue location.
“It’s a nightmare,” Sterling Williams said. “We have to fix it, save it or move. We don’t want to leave the city.”
The funeral home, at 632 Belmont Ave. since 1980 and in business since 1952, will install a decorative iron fence with pillars, add lighting and do some landscaping to at least keep the crime off the business’s property, Williams said.
The city’s Design Review Committee approved the funeral home’s exterior improvement proposal Tuesday.
The cost is about $53,000 with the city possibly providing up to 40 percent for the improvement work.
“We want our area of the city to look beautiful, and right now, it looks like a war zone,” Williams said. “Our business is losing customers.”
Tyler Williams, his son, said, “We have riffraff around the area. People don’t want to do business with us because of the illegal activity. Without the changes, the business will diminish, and we don’t want that to happen.”
Also, the committee approved a proposed exterior improvement of 28-32 Fifth Ave., a vacant building that will be the central administration office for Iron and String Life Enhancement, an agency that provides job skills and education to the mentally and physically impaired.
ISLE works out of several locations. It won’t close any of its facilities, but it will put its administrative staff at the Fifth Avenue location.
More than $400,000 in improvements are being made to the Fifth Avenue building, said Paul Hagman, the project’s architect.
The work should start in late fall, said Anthony Santangelo, ISLE’s maintenance director.
The committee also approved plans for a $500,000 improvement project at Park Vista, a retirement facility at 1216 Fifth Ave.
The facility is building a 2,000-square-foot indoor meeting room and a 2,000-square-foot exterior expansion for meditation and a meeting place for families and residents, Santangelo said.
The work should start construction next month, he said.
The indoor work should be done by the beginning of 2016 and the outdoor space should be ready by next spring.