43
Youngstown makes pitch to get HomeGoods warehouse on East Side
YOUNGSTOWN
With TJX Companies Inc. reconsidering its option to develop a $160 million HomeGoods warehouse in Lordstown, Youngstown officials are offering the company a 315-acre site on the city’s East Side for the facility.
The company rejected that location as being too small, but city officials have put together a larger, 315-acre piece of land for consideration, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said Wednesday at a city council meeting.
“When I heard the project might be dying in Lords-town, we wanted to make an offer,” Brown said.
The proposal includes a 10-year, 75-percent real-property tax abatement that would save TJX about $5 million as well as $5 million in water and wastewater grants, Brown said.
The proposed location is on the city’s border with Liberty and Hubbard taking up the former Lansdowne Airport and surrounding property, said T. Sharon Woodberry, the city’s director of community planning and economic development.
“TJX already considered the site, but it didn’t make it to the next round,” Woodberry said. “But we’re offering it again with more space.”
City officials, including all city council members, signed the letter.
The company planned to invest $160 million to develop a 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse center on 290 acres of residential land in the village of Lordstown, but pushback from some residents there led the company to rescind its zoning application for the development.
The development would bring about 1,000 jobs and $27 million annually in payroll to the area.
Lordstown officials are still hoping the company reconsiders.
In addition to Youngstown, other locations in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys are offering locations to the company for the warehouse.
The Penn-Northwest Development Corp. is offering space in Mercer County, and officials in Campbell and East Liverpool are offering locations in those cities.
Also Wednesday, city council voted to withdraw its objection to the renewal of a liquor license for the Southern Tavern at 1506-1508 Glenwood Ave.
There were shootings outside the bar in 2017 and 2015, with the latter resulting in the murder of a 34-year-old man and three others being shot.
Council objected Dec. 20, 2017, to the renewal of the bar’s liquor license.
But it voted to rescind that objection because the bar’s owner has taken a number of steps to improve the safety in and around the South Side bar, said Councilman Julius T. Oliver, D-1st, who sponsored the resolution.
The improvements include raising the minimum age for its customers to enter the business, hiring additional security, receiving increased police patrols and putting in significantly more lighting around the business, Oliver said.