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Youngstown council to consider creating fund downtown amphitheater and park at Wednesday meeting
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider legislation Wednesday to create a fund of up to $12 million to pay for a downtown amphitheater and riverfront park and spend $205,587 for 1.2 acres that would serve as its entrance.
The project’s first phase with the park and a 3,250-seat amphitheater at the former Wean United Building site on South Phelps Street will cost about $8 million to $9 million, said city Finance Director David Bozanich.
The city would obtain the money for the “amphitheater park fund” from a variety of sources including a $4 million, 20-year loan from its Community Development Block Grant; $5 million from the city’s water, wastewater and environmental sanitation funds; and the rest from sponsorships including naming rights, Bozanich said.
On council’s meeting agenda is authorizing the board of control to pay $205,587 to Youngstown Downtown Properties Inc. for 1.2 acres of a parking lot on Front Street that would be used as the amphitheater’s entrance, Bozanich said.
The design contract for the project is expected to be awarded in early 2017 with work beginning in late spring and done by late summer or early fall, Bozanich said.
Meanwhile, council’s agenda also includes two pieces of legislation to let owners of the proposed downtown hotel property borrow $2.75 million with $750,000 of it converted into a grant and the rest borrowed with no interest if certain conditions are met.
City administrators, however, are asking council members not to approve the proposal and wait to make a decision until after a committee meeting to discuss the financial package, said T. Sharon Woodberry, director of the community planning and economic development department.
That committee meeting is expected before council next meets Dec. 21 for a vote to occur then.
One ordinance would have the city lend $2,050,000 to Youngstown Stambaugh Hotel LLC, a subsidiary of the NYO Property Group, which is building the $35.4 million 130-bed DoubleTree by Hilton hotel at the Stambaugh Building, 44 E. Federal St.
The loan has no interest for 30 months with $750,000 of it forgiven if paid back on time.
The other loan is for $700,000 to be paid back up to 10 years. There is no interest if the loan is repaid in three years and goes to 6.5 percent if it takes longer than three years to pay back.
The loans would be repaid from proceeds from a $5 million state historic tax credit and a $4 million federal tax credit after the project is done, Woodberry said.
“With any loan, there is some risk, but with tax credits, it’s a pretty secure risk,” she said. “To allow the project to move forward, we’re addressing a gap they have in financing. The scale of the project and the economic impact it will have on downtown – including putting a vacant building back into service – will have a huge impact on the city as a whole.”
The city now has no hotels.
The city money is coming from water, wastewater and environmental sanitation funds for that type of work at the site, Woodberry said.
NYO started doing interior work to the building in July and the hotel is scheduled to be finished in December 2017.
The company is seeking a 15-year, 100-percent real-property tax abatement, but approval must come from the city school district, which hasn’t made a decision.
If the school board rejects the full abatement request, Woodberry said the city would grant a 10-year, 75-percent abatement.