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Youngstown is negotiating with a health care provider for the vacant Bottom Dollar supermarket building
YOUNGSTOWN
The city is negotiating a contract with a health care provider to purchase the former Bottom Dollar supermarket on the South Side.
The talks with ONE Health Ohio – which provides medical, dental and behavioral health services with a focus on lower-income people – are progressing well with the expectation of a deal being made, officials with the organization and city said Wednesday.
“We absolutely believe this is a strong project and that it will go forward,” said T. Sharon Woodberry, the city’s director of community planning and economic development. “We should have a deal by the end of the summer.”
“We’ve made a proposal and we’re interested in that property,” said Dr. Ronald Dwinnells, ONE Health Ohio’s chief executive officer. “We have the funds to purchase it. We’re ready at any time to purchase it.”
While he declined to discuss the price to buy the Glenwood Avenue building – and the city is having an appraisal done in June – Dwinnells said his organization would spend about $1.5 million to make the facility operational after a purchase.
It will take nine to 12 months after a deal is finalized for the facility to open, he said.
The city wanted to replace Bottom Dollar, which closed in January 2015, with another grocery store. But attempts to attract a supermarket to that location have been unsuccessful.
At the city’s request, ONE Health Ohio would have a food-distribution component to its facility if the deal is finalized, Dwinnells said.
“This will meet a need for that neighborhood and improve the quality of life there,” Woodberry said.
ONE Health operates six health care facilities in the area, including the Youngstown Community Health Center on Wick Avenue in Youngstown.
The city board of control signed a contract Wednesday with Big Dipper Food Co. Inc., a gourmet-candy company, to use the Bottom Dollar location to store and ship inventory through the end of August.
Big Dipper has offered to lease the property at $1,500 a month for six months with the option to purchase it for $180,000 anytime during that six-month period.
Big Dipper proposed investing $500,000 in equipment and improvements at the location for packaging and warehousing.
The deal doesn’t include Big Dipper paying any rent during the short-term lease.
If the deal with ONE Health doesn’t work out, Big Dipper would relocate to that location, Woodberry said.
Also, the board approved $4.1 million in contracts to get a city-run residential garbage collection serve up and running by May 2.
One contract with Premier Truck Sales and Rental Inc. of Cleveland for $104,000 is to rent eight garbage trucks for about two months.
The board also approved a $2,455,200 contract with R&R Inc. of Austintown for the purchase of eight new garbage trucks, an average cost of $306,900 per truck. The trucks should be done in two months, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public-works department.
Another contract is to pay up to $375,000 a year to Republic Services Inc. in disposal fees at its landfill in Poland Township.
The other contract is for $1,149,542 with Cascade Engineering of Grand Rapids, Mich., to purchase garbage receptacles for each of its 21,500 residential garbage customers.
The city is hiring eight or nine drivers and a supervisor for the sanitation work.