WRPA hosts last meeting at Penguin Place

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Western Reserve Port Authority hosted its last meeting at Penguin Place, 240 N. Champion St., on Wednesday as the building will soon be demolished for student housing.

The former St. Vincent de Paul building also will be demolished for Campus Lofts LLC to construct a 200-unit student housing complex.

In addition, port authority staff reported the Harshman building should be completed by mid-February.

In November, members reported renovations of the Harshman Building in downtown Youngstown were about halfway complete and that the project was under budget.

The port authority is developing the building, then leasing it to tenants. Part of the building will be occupied by Eastern Gateway Community College, which is expanding its downtown presence. The port authority’s economic development division is working to secure another tenant for the building’s second floor.

Guest Carol Rimedio-Righetti, Mahoning County commissioner, spoke about her ambitions for the Youngstown Developmental Center, 4891 E. County Line Road in Mineral Ridge.

“I’m so happy this agency is on board,” she said.

The WRPA, which will own and operate the property and is taking a leading role in developing it, recently learned its application for $500,000 in state funding that would help renovate the campus’s main building has been moved to the next phase in the application process.

The state shuttered the facility – which provided housing and care to individuals with developmental disabilities – on June 30, 2017.

“It’s so important to our community and surrounding communities,” Rimedio-Righetti said. “It will be the only facility in this part of the country that will have these kinds of wraparound services.”