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GM Lordstown top business story this year
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
It’s no surprise that the General Motors Lordstown Assembly Complex is No. 1 on the list of top business stories this year.
With slowing sales of the Cruze, the Mahoning Valley is wondering what the future of the Lordstown plant, one of the Valley’s largest employers, will look like.
Votes from The Vindicator’s newsroom staff as well as website and social media scoring were used to develop the list of the Top 10 business stories this year.
1The loss of the third shift at the GM Lordstown complex in January kicked off the start of a struggling year for the complex.
The plant, which employs 3,000 now instead of the 4,500 it did last year, makes the Chevrolet Cruze, a compact car.
Sales of compact cars have slowed as compact sport utility vehicles have become more popular and gas prices have remained low.
Last month was the second-worst month of sales for the Cruze with 8,330 sold. It was second only to the first month the Cruze was on the market in November 2010, when there were 8,066 sales.
In addition to the loss of the third shift, the plant had more than 10 down weeks this year.
To save GM money, the United Auto Workers is combining the two locals at the complex. Come February, UAW Local 1714, which represents the fabrication workers at the plant, will merge with UAW Local 1112, which currently represents the assembly plant workers. In exchange for combining the unions, the UAW received a commitment from General Motors that as long as the Cruze is built in North America, it will be built at the Lordstown plant.
11In August, the ultra-low-cost carrier Allegiant, the only commercial airliner at Youngstown- Warren Regional Airport, announced it no longer would operate at the local airport after Jan. 4.
Allegiant came to the Youngstown airport in 2006 with service to Sanford/Orlando, Fla. In 2011, Myrtle Beach, S.C., and St. Petersburg, Fla., flights were added. In 2013, the local airport received its fourth Allegiant flight to Punta Gorda, Fla., which has been on an extended hiatus.
Meanwhile, airport officials are working to get new commercial service.
11This year, the Youngstown Business Incubator opened the fifth building on its downtown campus at the corner of Boardman Street and Vindicator Square.
The building will house additive manufacturing companies, equipment and classroom space.
The building was previously owned by The Vindicator.
11Community Health Systems sold its local ValleyCare hospitals earlier this year.
The sale of Northside Medical Center in Youngstown, Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland to Boston-based Steward Health Care LLC was completed in May.
Since taking over, Steward invested in the local hospitals and hired more staff to run them more efficiently.
11After 20 years as the president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, Tom Humphries will officially retire at year’s end.
James Dignan, former commander of the 910th Airlift Wing in Vienna, is Humphries’ successor.
This year, the chamber had the opportunity, as every other city in the U.S. did, to submit a site to Amazon as a potential option for the company’s second headquarters. But, at the last minute, the chamber decided not to submit the site it selected since the area did not meet certain specifications Amazon either required or requested. Instead, the chamber backed the Cleveland site submitted.
11Since 1987, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has not intervened to prevent a utility crisis. That changed this year when Youngstown Thermal was unable to pay its bills. That closing would have left more than 40 customers without cooling and heating services.
PUCO stepped in and had the Ohio Attorney General’s Office ask the court to appoint a receiver of the steam-utility company to straighten out the company’s finances.
Reg Martin, a veteran in receiverships, was appointed receiver.
In other utility news, Aqua Ohio said this month it is interested in purchasing Youngstown’s water-distribution center. Aqua’s opening bid was $50 million.
Mayor-elect Jamael Tito Brown said he would look at the proposal but isn’t that interested in it since the city makes $32 million a year on its water system.
11Across the Valley, more businesses popped up this year.
Downtown saw the opening of Whistle & Keg, a downtown bar that offers a customer-operated tap system that pours beer, wine and ciders.
Down the street, construction continues on the 125-room DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel at 44 E. Federal St., which is scheduled to open in March 2018.
The hotel will feature a steakhouse, a coffee shop, a bank and a restaurant named YOSTERIA.
In Boardman, the former Kmart at 1209 Boardman-Poland Road was razed by mid-September, leaving the land open for new development opportunities. Casual Pint, a bar in the Shops at Boardman Park, opened.
Redevelopment of Tiffany Crossings, the plaza at the corner of Route 224 and Tiffany South Boulevard, is ongoing.
11This September marked the 40th anniversary of Black Monday when Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. announced it would close its Campbell plant, leaving thousands unemployed.
By 1980, YS&T’s Brier Hill plant closed, and U.S. Steel’s Ohio Works in Youngstown and McDonald Works in McDonald followed.
The effects of the loss of steel are still visible today.
Coincidentally, this year also saw the last blast furnace come down. BDM Warren Steel Holdings owned the blast furnace and the rest of the former mill property in Warren Township. BDM revealed plans in 2013 to demolish everything on the 1,100-acre Republic Steel/RG Steel mill site. The plant had closed in May 2012, leading to a loss of 1,000 jobs.
11The Valley watched this year as the $20 million chill-can plant on the East Side started to come to life.
Youngstown native Mitchell Joseph selected Youngstown to house his California company, Joseph Co. International’s East Coast operations. The complex on Lane Avenue, where Joseph’s great-grandfather founded and operated Star Bottling Co., will be a chill-can technology, can-filling and distribution center.
Joseph’s company has the trademark to the “chill can,” which allows a drink to be chilled in less than a minute by turning a knob on the can’s bottom.
22In July, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration released that it found marijuana in Ford Fusions manufactured in Mexico.
The marijuana initially was found inside the wheel well for a spare tire in a new Ford Fusion that was manufactured in Sonora, Mexico, at a Ford dealership in Kent, after one of the vehicles was unloaded from a car carrier.
Investigators then found 14 more packages of marijuana in other Fusions, which all came through a rail yard in Warren.
Altogether, about 14.5 per kilos per car, or 400 pounds of marijuana, was found. It had a street value of between $400,000 to $1 million.