Youngstown to weigh consolidating fire stations at new site

By David Skolnick | April 27, 2017 at 12:04a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

A feasibility study will determine if the city should consider consolidating its main fire station downtown and one on Madison Avenue at a new location.

The board of control will vote today on paying $47,500 to Strollo Architects of Youngstown for work including preliminary designs, site selection and a cost estimate, said Mayor John A. McNally, its chairman.

The city is looking to find a new location for its No. 1 fire station at 420 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and the nearby No. 7 station at 145 Madison Ave. on the North Side that also would house the department’s headquarters, vehicle maintenance, inspections and investigations departments as well as a fire rescue truck, a pumper and a ladder truck, said fire Chief John J. O’Neill Jr.

The chief said a new station ideally would be near Wick Park so it could service downtown and the city’s North and East sides.

The Strollo study will determine the projected cost of a new station. But O’Neill estimated it at about $4 million.

It will take a couple of months for the study to be finished, O’Neill said.

“They have to do property research, preliminary designs on how much space is needed and if it’s feasible,” he said. “About 15,000 square feet is needed.”

Also by consolidating two stations, about seven fire department personnel would be reduced through attrition, O’Neill said.

A decision won’t be made for several months, he said.

It’s premature to decide what would happen to the main fire station if a new one is constructed, O’Neill and McNally said. The No. 7 station is leased to the city by a subsidiary of NYO Property Group.

Also today, the board will consider loaning $2,750,000 to Youngstown Stambaugh Hotel LLC, another NYO subsidiary, with $750,000 of it forgiven and the remainder borrowed without interest under certain conditions for a 130-bed DoubleTree by Hilton hotel being built at the vacant Stambaugh Building, 44 E. Federal St.

In addition to the loan, the board will consider a 10-year, 75-percent real-property tax abatement for the hotel.

The abatement would save the company $228,887 annually and have it pay $76,296 a year.