City Buys Mill Creek Park House for $1

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – In the next couple of weeks, Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. officials will take possession of a house on Old Furnace Road from the city.

The Youngstown Board of Control voted Thursday morning to approve a purchase and sale agreement between the city and the Mill Creek MetroParks Board of Commissioners to acquire 900 Old Furnace Road for $1.

City Council approved an ordinance authorizing the purchase of the property and subsequent transfer to YNDC last month. The city will transfer the property to YNDC in a week or two, city Law Director Jeff Limbian said following the Board of Control meeting.

“We’re basically acting as a pass-though between Mill Creek Park and YNDC,” he said.

The property, which has been vacant for some time, is in a “very visible location” in a neighborhood that is otherwise stable but “certainly is not living up to its highest and best use,” Tiffany Sokol, YNDC’s housing director, said.

YNDC will have “a better handle” on its plans for the property once it takes possession, she said. The organization “took a look at” the property – which for several years served as the home of the Mill Creek Park superintendent – before agreeing to accept it.

“It’s certainly structurally sound but it does need significant investment,” she said. “It hadn’t seen significant investment in probably a good 30 years so we’ve got quite a bit of work to do there.”

During the meeting, the board of control also approved entering into an active transportation planning grant agreement for a preliminary study of Glenwood Avenue and providing more than $18,000 from the COVID-19 Microenterprise grant program to reimburse two businesses for expenses incurred during the coronavirus pandemic.

The transportation grant will be used to initiate planning to improve safety, multimodal travel and neighborhood stabilization along the artery, which extends from near downtown Youngstown into Boardman.

Charles Shasho, Youngstown deputy director of public works, described it as “a small study” to “lay the groundwork for future projects.”

The estimated cost of study is $42,000, for which Eastgate Regional Council of Governments will reimburse the city $21,000.

The two grants from the city’s COVID-19 Microenterprise Grant Program were $14,500 for YO-Crash LLC and $3,800 for Moe’s Lebanese Cuisine.

Pictured: The City of Youngstown purchased the house at 900 Old Furnace Road for $1 and will hand it over to YNDC.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.