City to Consider Gas Station Demo Contract, Appropriating $11M in APR Funds
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — City Council will consider a contract next week for demolition, removal of three underground gas tanks and remediation at the site of a former Wick Avenue gas station.
Council members will consider an ordinance authorizing the city’s Board of Control to enter into an agreement worth $212,750 with Mannick & Smith Group Inc., Maumee, for the work at the site.
There is no end user for the 1395 Wick Ave. property, said Nikki Posterli, director of community planning and economic development.
Last year, City Council approved accepting the Ohio Department of Development Abandoned Gas Station Cleanup Grant for the site.
The old gas station is at the corner of Wick and Bissell avenues, north of the former Wick 6 car dealership properties and about a block way from the Golden Dawn, said Nick Chretien, regional development and planning manager for the Western Reserve Port Authority and executive director of Economic Action Group. Both organizations assist the city with community planning and economic development activities.
The scope of work in the agreement includes demolition and clearance of the existing service station building and pavement; removing the two 6,000-gallon gasoline underground storage tanks and one 3,000-gallon tank for diesel fuel; removing and disposing of petroleum-contaminated soil; and site remediation.
The city plans to seek additional funds from the program to remediate other qualifying sites through the program.
“We will continue to use this grant opportunity to add site-ready locations to our economic development toolbox,” Posterli said.
“There is a list of other eligible properties that will be pursued once this is on track for completion,” Chretien added.
Also during next week’s meeting, council members will consider appropriating about $11 million of its American Rescue Plan appropriation. The city will receive $82.7 million through the ARP legislation, which Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law just over a year ago.
Just over a third of that – approximately $3.9 million – will go toward replacing replacement of lost revenue because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another $7 million is being appropriated to be spent equally in each of the city’s seven wards. The money will be used for “ward-specific projects that focus on quality-of-life improvements, enhancement of existing neighborhood resources and the stabilization of ward corridors,” according to a resolution passed last December. The spending is apart from any other use of ARP funds in the wards.
The ARP spending also includes a $129,000 to provide a grant to Action, a local faith-based group, to purchase a mobile grocery store and install all necessary equipment. The mobile market will be used to sell and deliver groceries to the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Pictured: Site of a former Wick Avenue gas station being considered for remediation.
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