Development Department to Move Back to City Hall
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The city’s department of community planning and economic development will move back into City Hall the weekend following Veterans Day.
The city Board of Control this morning approved a $6,555 contract with Carney McNicholas Inc. to move the department from its current space on the sixth floor of 20 Federal Place to the fourth floor of City Hall.
The 10-person department will take over the space formerly occupied by the city prosecutor’s department, which relocated to the City Hall Annex last year along with the municipal courts.
Earlier this year, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown decided to move the community planning and economic development offices to the fourth-floor space. Last year, he had considered relocating the department to the vacant clerk of courts space on the second floor. That office also moved to the annex building.
“He’s been thinking about it since he took over and wanted to get them back into City Hall,” said Kevin Flinn, building and grounds commissioner.
The board also approved paying Valley Acoustics Inc. $12,995 for new ceiling tile for the space. The space also received new carpeting, light fixtures and paint, Flynn said.
The former city prosecutor’s office, at 2,250 square feet, is less than half the size of the 5,250-square-foot space community planning and economic development is leaving in 20 Federal.
“It’s adequate for everyone that we have now. Everyone will have an office,” said Nikki Posterli, director of the department of community planning and economic development and Brown’s chief of staff. The litter control division will move back into the health department, she said.
The city will begin marketing the space at 20 Federal for potential tenants once community planning and economic development has vacated it.
In other business, the board approved providing $100,000 in Community Development Block Grant money to the Youngstown Business Incubator for a new supplier diversity and inclusion initiative it launched recently. City Council approved the funds in June.
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