Local developer, business owner to open downtown eatery
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
A new restaurant will open on the first floor of The Wick Tower in downtown come September.
Ryan Sheridan, owner of Braking Point Recovery in Austintown and recent purchaser of the Gallagher Building, announced he is opening the new restaurant. He made the announcement at the Downtown Youngstown Partnership meeting that took place Thursday evening at the main library in Youngstown.
The Cove at Wick will have an industrial coastal feel to it with a fresh menu, Sheridan said.
“I wanted something that felt like you were on vacation,” Sheridan said. “It’s going to be something different.”
The Wick Tower, a 100-plus-year-old building at 34 W. Federal St., was reopened by NYO Property Group in 2015 with apartments and extended-stay housing units.
Sheridan said the Gallagher Building reconstruction is now in the financing phase. He hopes to have the building completed with more than 20 apartment units, a restaurant and three storefronts by early next year.
At the beginning of January, The Vindicator broke the news that the Gallagher, a 113-year-old building at the corner of Commerce and Hazel streets, had been sold to Sheridan’s company for $280,000.
The Gallagher Building’s story goes back to 1904 when it housed the John Gallagher Co. wholesale liquor establishment. John Gallagher was a successful liquor seller.
He had the neoclassical, four-story warehouse built to support his business until Prohibition came in 1920. The Gatta Co. of Niles had purchased the building in September 2012 with plans to remodel it with apartments and a restaurant, but the plans never materialized.
In 2014, the building was placed in the National Register of Historic Places Program and received $1.32 million Ohio Historic Preservation tax credit from the Ohio Development Services Agency, according to Vindicator files.
Sheridan said he is awaiting to hear if the historic tax credits will be extended, so they can be used for the project.
“Even if they don’t extend the tax credits, the project will got forward,” he said. “I am ecstatic about this [project].”