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Youngstown plans to improve three streets
Financial assistance expected from YSU for Wick Ave. project
YOUNGSTOWN
City council authorized the board of control to enter into contracts for improvement work on three streets including North Meridian Road and Wick Avenue, two of Youngstown’s main roads.
The project on Wick Avenue from McGuffey Road to Wood Street will begin in middle to late summer with a cost estimate of about $4 million, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public-works department.
City council agreed Wednesday to allow the board of control to spend up to $480,000 for design services that will replace a waterline and a sewer line, take above-ground utility poles and move those wires underground, and pave the street.
The city expects Youngstown State University to provide financial assistance toward the project.
Youngstown CityScape is raising private funding for the utility move.
The North Meridian Road paving project – from Mahoning Avenue to Interstate 680 – won’t start until July 2016.
Council agreed to permit the board to spend up to $250,000 for design work. The project’s estimated to cost $2.5 million.
The city usually gets about two-thirds of the cost of a project such as this from grants, Shasho said.
Mahoning County will be responsible for a second phase of work on North Meridian Road from Mahoning Avenue south to Canfield Road.
That project isn’t slated to start until 2019, Shasho said.
The other project is on North Phelps Street between West Federal and West Commerce streets.
A project to replace an old sewer line there started more than two years ago, and came to a stop with the discovery of underground AT&T wires and telephone conduits in the path of the sewer line.
Work on that project, estimated to cost $1.8 million, will begin later this year and take 12 to 18 months to complete.
Council’s vote, however, was to permit the board of control to spend up to $50,000 for design work to landscape and beautify that section of the street.
Mayor John A. McNally initially said he wanted to keep the street permanently closed even after the work is done and make it an outdoor gathering place. But Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, whose district includes downtown, objected saying it would be confusing for motorists not familiar with the city.
She suggested closing it at night and on weekends.
McNally said he didn’t have an issue with Gillam’s proposal, but later said both options were on the table.
The mayor did say the road wouldn’t become an entertainment district under a new state law.
That law permits Youngstown and certain other cities to create outdoor areas exempt from the state’s open-container law.
Youngstown may create an entertainment district somewhere downtown, but it won’t be on Phelps, McNally said.
Also, council gave a first reading to a proposal to raise the city’s motor vehicle license fee from $5 to $10.
The increase would generate about $350,000 annually with that money used to fill potholes and other road improvements, McNally said.
It didn’t get a vote Wednesday because Gillam objected.
“I’ve never been in favor of increasing the license fee,” she said.
The additional money would permit the city to pave about 10 more streets annually, Shasho said.