Thursday, October 22, 2015
Staff report
WARREN
Mark Marvin, who built a 98,000-square-foot Reinforcement Systems, LLC factory on West Market Street in 2010 and then sold his interest in the facility, is investing again in Warren.
Marvin, a 1983 Warren G. Harding High School graduate, purchased four buildings on Courthouse Square in September and is investing $1 million to $2 million in them.
Part of his vision involves a return to urban apartment living.
Marvin explained his plans to reporters Wednesday inside the building at 197 W. Market St. that houses the offices of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
The building is 76 percent occupied, but he hopes to make that 100 percent after renovating the top four floors. He is having design work done for a fourth-floor renovation for a potential tenant and has plans for luxury apartments on one floor, and a condominium on the seventh floor.
Two buildings to the east, at 193 W. Market and 187 W. Market, will remain the same, but the building at 124 North Park will be renovated to create apartments on the third and fourth floors, he said.
He believes it’s possible that he will create a restaurant or bar on the first floor where a radio station once existed.
“People are coming back to an urban way of life,” he said, adding that people who visited his factory in Warren frequently remarked “how beautiful our downtown is,” Marvin said.
Marvin’s meeting with the news media was organized by Warren Mayor Doug Franklin.