YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Two downtown entities are asking to intervene in the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio’s ongoing Mahoning County Common Pleas Court case against SOBE Thermal Energy.
The city was added last April as an intervening defendant.
The latest motion, filed Monday on behalf of West 34 Investors LLC and Erie Terminal Place LLC, is limited to receivership matters that “directly affect continued steam service, customer payments, disposition or abandonment of system assets, use of operating revenues and other relief” within the court’s receivership jurisdiction, it reads. Both West 34 and Erie Terminal Place are paying customers of the SOBE-operated district steam system.
West 34 owns Wick Tower, a mixed-use building at 34 W. Federal St., with 40 residential units and a commercial unit. Erie Terminal, 112 W. Commerce St., is a mixed-use building with 40 residential and several commercial tenants.
Since the receivership began, those buildings “have experienced or faced service outages, inadequate steam, metering disputes, material rate or payment effects and business interruptions,” the motion says.
Attached to the motion is a letter, dated Sept. 9, to Erie Terminal from an attorney for the SOBE receiver saying that the building was subject to disconnection for nonpayment of services. The disconnection could happen as early as Friday. The letter lists the past due amount of $25,735.
The attorney for the companies that own the two buildings says in a proposed intervening complaint for declaratory and equitable relief that Erie relies on steam for heat in the winter and West 34 relies on steam for heat and hot water all year.
“Loss or material degradation of service would cause loss of heat and hot water for significant residential units potentially rendering the buildings uninhabitable and/or dangerous to the health and well being of downtown residents,” it says.
The PUCO previously determined that SOBE could raise rates but allowed a rehearing at the request of the city and the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. Last week, those two entities argued in a joint filing that the PUCO should set an ending date for SOBE’s emergency rate increases and require the company to include “subject to refund” language.
The increases raised consumers’ bills by 36% or more for cooling service and by 85% or more for heating service. SOBE serves 27 buildings in downtown Youngstown, including City Hall and the city police station.
SOBE reported in May it could be forced to cease operations as early as late September or early October without an emergency rate increase or alternative funding to pay operational expenses.
The Ohio Attorney General’s office is expected to file a response this week to the city and Ohio Consumers’ Counsel’s brief.
Earlier this month, John C. Collins, the SOBE receiver charged with managing the affairs of SOBE, said in his second receiver’s report with the Mahoning County Court of Common Pleas that Detroit Thermal, a subsidiary of Cartier Energy, is the only company that has demonstrated “continuing interest” in coming to some arrangement with SOBE.
SOBE’s problems began to emerge after an 800-horsepower mobile boiler was disconnected and repossessed by its owners Sept. 30, 2025, after SOBE management failed to make payments on its lease obligations, leaving customers without heat or hot water.
Heating problems have persisted for SOBE’s downtown customers.
In his report earlier this month, Collins wrote, “Unless the receiver receives funding to continue operating from a public source, like the state of Ohio, an agency of the federal government, Mahoning County, the city of Youngstown, or any other agency, SOBE Thermal will not be able to pay its expenses beginning sometime in November, 2026, if not before.”