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Youngstown council to weigh buying former St. Vincent DePaul dining hall
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider legislation Wednesday to have the board of control spend up to $79,000 to purchase the closed St. Vincent DePaul Society dining hall for possible development related to the downtown amphitheater project.
There are a number of potential uses for the site at 208 W. Front St. including a parking lot, restaurant and bar, said Mayor John A. McNally.
“We’ve had some people express interest in that location, especially as it relates to the amphitheater,” he said. “It leads to the front door of the amphitheater. By purchasing the property, it gives the city the flexibility to decide what to do with that property.”
The city could keep the location or decide to sell it, McNally said.
The mayor, whose term expires at the end of the year, said he’d let the next administration decide the best use for the property.
The old dining hall, which St. Vincent has operated since the mid-1980s, served its last meals June 30. The building was then closed after the Mahoning County Building Inspection Department found it to be unsafe.
An employee complaint prompted a safety-hazard inspection June 23, and that inspection reportedly found a collapsed ceiling above a second-floor office, rotting floor under compartment sinks on the first floor and rotting floor-joist tails in the basement.
The cost to fix the issues at the old building was too expensive, according to society officials, and the dining hall was relocated in August to the fellowship hall of Sts. Cyril & Methodius Church, 252 E. Wood St.
If a business opens at the former hall location, McNally said he couldn’t say if the building would need to be demolished.
The city is spending $8 million to $9 million to construct an amphitheater and park along the Mahoning River from the South Avenue Bridge to just west of Hazel Street at the former Wean United Building. The 3,250-seat amphitheater will be on property that includes the former Wean site on South Phelps Street.
The amphitheater is to open sometime in fall 2018.