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Downtown parties on
YOUNGSTOWN
The parties will come to an end for Warehouse 50 at the Stambaugh Building on Halloween.
The bar and only occupant of the building, on Central Square in downtown, will have to find a new home after its lease expires after Oct. 31. The Stambaugh Building will be converted into a 120-bed hotel, which will include a restaurant and banquet facility.
Tim Nesnidol, general manager of Warehouse 50, said there’s no hard feelings about the situation.
“Business has been great all around,” he added, saying he would have liked to have stayed longer at the location.
NYO Property Group announced in November 2014 the Stambaugh Building will become a DoubleTree Hotel as part of the Hilton Hotel chain.
“[Warehouse 50] just doesn’t fit the model,” said Dominic J. Marchionda, owner of NYOPG.
The property developer is close to completing the finance for the 14- to 16-month project, which he anticipates to start sometime in October.
“We’re ready to go,” he said.
Warehouse 50, which employs more than 20 people, has grown from a live-music bar to the club and restaurant-style scene since it opened June 2013.
It was the third bar at the site of the Stambaugh Building’s street level after Dooney’s Downtown Grill & Bar, which was opened from July 2012 to April 2013, and Buffalo Wild Wings, which opened in 1994 before closing June 2012.
The bar’s management is reviewing its options. Nesnidol said winter is a slow period for business, and it wouldn’t make sense to open at a new location this year. Instead, the bar may open at its new home next summer.
“I don’t think we’ll go with downtown Youngstown [again],” he said, adding the bar wants to target a different demographic. The bar is considering moving to Canfield or Boardman.
But Warehouse 50’s departure doesn’t signal the end for one downtown tradition.
“The Party on the Plaza will continue,” Marchionda said. “It draws a really nice crowd.”
Buffalo Wild Wings started the Party on the Plaza series, featuring a night of food, drinks and live music for entertainment, according to Vindicator files.
Mark DeVicchio, founder and lead singer of the Houseband, said the local band participated in the first Party on the Plaza after performing at previous incarnations in downtown during the early 1990s.
“That was our first proper show,” he said. “It was affirmation that things were going to start downtown.”
The Houseband plans to perform at the last Party on the Plaza this year in September.
Chris Sammarone, a local attorney and a former co-owner of Dooney’s, said his bar continued the tradition for one summer.
“It brought people downtown that normally wouldn’t come,” he said.
Sammarone said Party on the Plaza has played an important role in the revitalization of downtown, and also credited it with spurring other downtown events such as the Jazz Fest and 2DE Gospel Festival, which recently livened the area with music and fun near Central Square this month.
When Warehouse 50 hosted the events from June to September, the bar usually entertained about 400 people whenever Party on the Plaza was on, compared with about 60 people on a normal night.
“It’s definitely our bread and butter,” Nesnidol said.
He couldn’t see the events continuing without a bar to host it, but Marchionda said some community members already are looking to do so, spearheaded by Michael McGiffin, the city’s coordinator of downtown events.
“We recognize the brand behind Party on the Plaza,” McGiffin said. “Party on the Plaza has historically been owned by that bar [venue].”
He pointed out the west side of Federal Street, closer to the bars in that area, and the proposed amphitheater on the riverfront as “attractive locations,” though nothing is set in stone. Further discussions about the events are expected to happen sometime in January.