Wednesday, June 17, 2015
By KALEA HALL
YOUNGSTOWN
Developers in the area, and the state, will breathe a sigh of relief when the Ohio Senate votes on its $71 billion, two-year budget today.
Their concern over the loss of Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits has ended.
“It is too important of a program,” said Dominic J. Marchionda of NYO Property Group. “There is nothing more rewarding than bringing an existing structure with historical integrity back to life.”
The Senate removed language it had added last week to freeze the state’s historic tax credit program, but members included a new provision requiring the Development Services Agency to study ways to convert the credits to grants for future projects.
NYO Property Group has several projects that have benefited from the tax credits:
The completed $9 million Erie Terminal project to create a new downtown apartment complex, Erie Terminal Place, received $2,574,695 in tax credits.
The completed $8 million-plus Realty Building upgrade to Realty Tower Apartments received about $2 million in tax credits from the program.
The ongoing $16 million Wick Building project to convert the vacant structure into a 52-unit rental and extended-stay living facility received $3,572,687 in tax credits.
The future multimillion project to revamp the Stambaugh Building to a 120-bed DoubleTree Hotel received $5 million in tax credits from the program.
Strollo Architects of Youngstown received $1 million in tax credits for the restoration of the Wells Building, which has been vacant for about 30 years. The building soon will become the new Strollo headquarters with apartments on the second, third and fourth floors.
The proposal to lose the credits “would have been detrimental,” said Kirk Kreuzwieser, vice president and principal at Strollo.
The about $5 million Wells Building project is nearly 50 percent complete.
The two-year freeze on the historic preservation tax credits, which had been proposed and inserted into the Ohio Senate’s budget, would have halted projects, local developers and others across the state said.
“We would have hit a brick wall with the Wick Building,” Marchionda said. “This project is a month away from being complete.”
Most of the historic restoration projects cannot be done without the tax credit because of the expense involved to maintain the historical integrity of the buildings.
The Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit program is handled by the Ohio Development Services Agency. In total, $482.3 million in tax credits have been approved for 238 projects since 2007. Additionally, 101 of those projects have been completed and tax-credit certificates for a total of $218.9 million have been awarded for those projects.
After work is complete on a project and it has been verified, the tax-credit certificates are awarded, the state said.
The proposal to freeze the credits was designed to allow existing projects to go forward, but the language was not clear, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
“You are counting on that funding to complete the project,” Marchionda said. “It basically shuts down a project. Without programs like these it would not be possible.”
When Marchionda heard about the proposal, he quickly placed a couple of calls to the state, including to Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd.
“I talked to investors, architects and developers, and they all talked about how important and how pivotal this tax credit is,” Schiavoni said. “This is affecting real-time projects.”
Schiavoni, who was shocked to even see the proposal in the budget, brought the concerns he received to the president of the Ohio Senate, Keith Faber of Celina, D-12th.
“I am glad to see that it has been stripped out,” Schiavoni said.
The historic tax credit program “is a proven winner,” Schiavoni said.
State Sen. Capri Cafaro of Liberty, D-32nd, also heard concerns on the proposal.
“It raised a lot of questions and outreach across the state,” she said.
Cafaro said she would argue the program has been effective.
“I think we all recognize the value of the tax credit program as it relates to reinvestment to local economies across Ohio,” she said.
The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber had a firm stance against the moratorium. The chamber, along with seven other metro chambers in the state, sent a letter June 12 to the Senate Finance Committee urging removal of the proposal.
“It is good news that the freeze has been lifted,” said Guy C. Coviello, chamber vice president of government affairs and media. “It would have been, we feel, very detrimental to a lot of economic development, and I know there were many developers all around the state that had expressed concern.”