Downtown Youngstown: The Complete Package

By KALEA HALL

khall@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

As a young man, Dominic J. Marchionda was told by his parents to stay away from a troubled downtown when he came home on the weekends.

It’s a good thing he didn’t listen.

He has both embraced the former ramshackle downtown and helped to develop it for residents, workers and visitors.

“It’s just one thing after another that’s happening,” Marchionda said of the city.

The chief executive of NYO Property Group and his team already have brought the city rejuvenated rental spaces at The Wick Tower, Erie Terminal Place and Realty Tower.

Soon they will bring a hotel.

The Stambaugh Building, on Central Square, is a downtown landmark that will become a Youngstown destination hub as the city’s hotel.

“We are almost there,” Marchionda said. “We have different pieces of the financing stack. We are moving forward. There’s no reason to think otherwise.”

The project was announced in November 2014. The 1907 structure will be converted into a 120-bed DoubleTree Hilton hotel with a restaurant and banquet facility.

The multi-million dollar project is a collaboration between NYO Property Group and Pan Brothers Associates, a real-estate services company in New York City.

“My plan is to deliver it for the third quarter of next year,” Marchionda said. “That hasn’t changed.”

Events that the Covelli Centre offers will be better served with a hotel nearby, he added.

Outside of his hotel project and other projects he has worked on, he sees much potential and promising progress in downtown.

“I think this is the start of something big,” he said.

PIECES OF THE PUZZLE

Restaurants, apartments, businesses and entertainment venues have breathed new life into a city that some thought was lost forever.

Last Tuesday — as the Covelli Centre hosted Elton John and Stambaugh Auditorium hosted ZZ Top — the downtown area was transformed into the City of Rock.

Covelli and Stambaugh brought the entertainment.

Restaurants and bars brought the food and drink.

Build it, open it, offer it — and they will come.

For some natives of Youngstown, the scene was like a dream. For businesses owners, it was a dream come true. For visitors, downtown Youngstown was an inviting hot spot, many said.

“The Covelli Centre is the best thing to ever happen to downtown Youngstown,” said Ed Moses, co-owner of V2 on Federal Street, on Tuesday evening. The restaurant, an Italian-style establishment with a wine bar, opened in 2012.

“We have been rock and rolling every year,” Moses said of business.

Next door at The Federal, a burger bar, general manager Dan Martini said it’s not just Covelli that helps the business. DeYor Performing Arts Center, OH WOW! Children’s Center for Science & Technology and other places downtown also bring in business.

“I think the city does a great job with events,” Martini said.

A week earlier, St. Patrick’s Day festivities arrived on the same day as a Carrie Underwood concert at Covelli.

Martini was slightly concerned, but for a good reason: The crowd.

He needn’t have worried since he estimated at least 3,000 people came through the door at The Federal that day.

Roberto Faraglia, owner of Roberto’s Italian Ristorante across the street from V2 and The Federal, was working hard Tuesday evening to seat customers before the concerts.

“It’s great,” he said of business. “It just keeps getting better and better.”

Faraglia opened his restaurant four years ago. “Downtown has kept growing,” he said. “People are moving down here and coming here.”

THE EDUCATION PIECE

Youngstown State University is undoubtedly a major piece to the puzzle in bringing back life to the city.

At the same time, the life downtown has had an effect on the university.

Youngstown State University President James Tressel says you can’t have one without the other.

“The progress that has happened downtown in the last 15 years is transformational to the university,” Tressel said. “It makes such a difference for us.”

Next fall, the university will have 162 new student apartments at 348 W. Rayen Ave. Hallmark Campus Communities of Columbus is behind these University Edge YSU apartments.

Also, the Western Reserve Port Authority board recently approved preliminary planning for capital-lease financing to the Youngstown Campus Associates LLC student housing project. That project, the YSU Enclave, will be adjacent to campus and bring 163 units to its site at the Wick and Rayen Avenues area.

THE TECH PIECE

The Youngstown Business Incubator has transformed the Rust Belt into the Tech Belt. Incubator innovators have put the city on the map. Turning Technologies, for example, became nationally known with its software called TurningPoint, which allows audiences and students to respond to questions presented by a speaker or teacher.

Another YBI-started company is Ving, an engagement platform that recently became integrated with Google Classroom to help teachers realize what students do and do not understand.

“We are thrilled to be a part of the downtown renaissance and a part of the story about Youngstown coming back,” said Barb Ewing, YBI’s chief operating officer.

Last year, YBI added its fifth building to its tech campus downtown with the purchase of the old Vindicator building. The building will give the incubator 57,000 square feet of additional space for more business start-ups.

Advertising for a contractor on the project will begin Friday.

YBI has been credited as a major piece to the puzzle for growth in Youngstown.

THE DEVELOPMENT PIECE

Private investment from developers such as Marchionda and Gregg Strollo of Strollo Architects, who brought back the Wells Building for his company’s headquarters and apartments, has made the city look better and brought more people here.

Tom Humphries, president and chief executive officer of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, reflected on those pioneers from the past, such as former Youngstown Mayor Pat Ungaro, who is now Liberty Township administrator.

The chamber oversees the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp., which was formed as the downtown real-estate organization to redevelop buildings. The organization would buy buildings and resell them so they could be reinvented. Examples include the George V. Voinovich Government Center and the first YBI building, both on Federal Street. The corporation, also known as the CIC, is considered the catalyst for redevelopment of the downtown area. Business, community leaders and government officials make up CIC.

“Every mayor has ... their fingerprints on this, and a lot of businesses people do too,” Humphries said “There’s a lot of people who have stepped up and did what they needed to do.”

Michael McGiffin, coordinator of events and special projects for Youngstown, has three projects in the works: wayfinding signs, parking and an amphitheater.

The signs mostly will be placed downtown to direct people toward the arts district, restaurants, parking and other spots.

The goal with parking is to create better turnover for on-street parking, add more street spaces and upgrade the meters.

An amphitheater project is in the design phase. The plan is for the amphitheater and a park to augment the Covelli Centre. It would be developed along the Mahoning River from underneath the South Avenue bridge, passing under the Market Street Bridge to just west of Hazel Street.

“It is going to put us in a market to attract summer concerts,” McGiffin said. “It will allow us to grow our summer festival series.”

Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally likes to call what’s happening in the city “momentum.” But he would like to see more vacancies occupied, and he specifically would like to build up the west end of Federal Street.

“This stuff will continue to take time, but I am happy with the progress the city has made,” McNally said.

BRINGING THE PIECES TOGETHER

Dominic J. Marchionda’s son, Dominic C. Marchionda, the city-university planner for the Regional Economic Development Initiative at Youngstown State University, created the Economic Action Group.

Every month since December 2013 a group of local business people, community leaders and government officials have gathered to discuss the city and what can be done to “accelerate downtown Youngstown’s resurgence as a center of employment, higher education, governmental services, and culture,” according to its website.

The younger Marchionda formed the action group after he noticed a need for changes in the city from street signs to properties. Other people “realized there needed to be changes made,” too, Marchionda said.

So, a Downtown Vision Action Plan was developed and presented in March 2015. The plan looked at making downtown a destination, opportunity sites, urban landscape, campus and pedestrian connections, infrastructure upgrades, parking management, market-

demand opportunities and intergovernmental cooperation.

The EAG last week looked at the results after one year of work by various people and organizations.

The group found that 15 percent of the 188 goals set were completed in one year. Some include coordinating downtown events with YoungstownLive and local businesses; identifying mural opportunities and painting one annually; determining key corridors into downtown; determining barriers that limit pedestrian movement; assembling proposals for a riverfront redevelopment plan and more.

“We have always had the infrastructure and the hustle of people who have never left here and people who are coming back,” Marchionda said. “You match that with will and passion, and I think we will continue to enjoy strategic growth.”