Youngstown OKs Help for NYO’s Wick Tower
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The 20 Federal Place building, owned by the city, will lend a hand – to wit, utilities — to NYO Property Group as it prepares to open Wick Tower.
Under the lease the Board of Control approved Thursday morning, NYO will place its heat exchanger in the basement of 20 Federal Place and run piping into the Wick Tower that would furnish its tenants with heat, Law Director Martin Hume said. In addition, NYO will run pipes from a chiller on the seventh floor of 20 Federal Place for six months.
“Thereafter they’re going to get their own chiller,” he said.
NYO will pay $8 per million Btu for use of the chiller system as well as the rate the city is charged for electricity to run the heat exchanger, he said.
The building, slated to open in August, will have 33 fully furnished apartments and 16 extended-stay units, according to the NYO website. NYO officials were out of town Thursday and unavailable for comment.
The agreement with the downtown developer was among several items – including a lease for a local job-training agency and contracts to provide funds to help a small business and address neighborhood blight – the board approved.
Mahoning and Columbiana Training Association will move to Suite 604 in 20 Federal Place from the City Hall Annex in August under the lease approved Thursday.
The annex building is being renovated to house the municipal courts, their offices and that of the clerk of courts. Strollo Architects is vacating its 8,500-square-foot suite in 20 Federal to move into the Wells Building downtown.
“We’re excited that [MCTA] still wanted to stay in the city and are able to move over,” said Sean McKinney, city building and grounds commissioner. Under the terms of the 20-year lease, MCTA will pay $8.50 per square foot for eight years, with increase in the ninth and succeeding years based on the rate of inflation.
MCTA had intended to move into Suite 601, which has 11,899 square feet, but VXI Global Solutions has expressed interest in the space should it decides to again expand in the building. McKinney said the call center has not committed to such an expansion. The call center is the largest tenant, occupying all of the fourth and fifth floors, part of the second floor and a suite on the ground floor, where its employee recruitment center is.
The board – which consists of Mayor John McNally, Finance Director David Bozanich and Hume – also approved a Youngstown Initiative program performance grant of $6,141 to help KBC KIDZ LLC with its $61,416 expansion.
KBC, which plans and hosts children’s birthday parties, intends to add seven employees over three years, said Tom DeAngelo, economic development coordinator. Funds will be used to support the additional employees and acquire equipment, such as costumes for the themed parties, he said.
DeAngelo is working with the company, which operating out of the Oak Hill Collaborative, to find a building in the city.
In addition, the board approved an agreement with Oak Hill Collaborative, which is acting as fiscal agent for $50,000 the city is providing to help open Café Augustine in the Newport branch of the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County. Oak Hill has taken the role because the café is “a relatively new nonprofit,” Bill D’Avignon, community development director, said.
D’Avignon also sought and received approval for contracts that total more than $540,000 with Youngstown Neighborhood development Corp. Services YNDC would provide include boarding up vacant houses, cleaning up neighborhood and repairing owner-occupied houses, D’Avignon said.
Pictured: Wick Tower Building and 20 Federal.
Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
