YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A seven-figure investment turned an outdated Belmont Avenue building into a work-share and technology space.
“Edge1343 is kind of a unique building in Youngstown, which has always been a unique building in Youngstown,” said Mike Meloy, one of the partners in the project.
“We just put a little twist on it.”
Dubbed a coworking and business hub, the project was developed by Edgecity Holdings. Meloy’s partners are Carl Gordulic and Pat Rager. The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber led a ceremonial ribbon-cutting ceremony at the building Thursday morning.
Much of the internet in Mahoning and Columbiana counties comes from the building at 1343 Belmont Ave., serving schools, financial institutions, businesses and homes.
The data center remains there, but much of the rest of the building was unused. The partners decided to create gig worker access to the nonsecure data center portion of the building.
“It’s a co-share facility, so you can come in and rent an office for a day, a week, a month,” Meloy said. “And we have full-time tenants as well.”
The full-time tenant space is full, but memberships are still available. Those allow people, such as remote workers, information/technology employees or sales people who cover the region but lack office space, to book space in the building.
“This is taking advantage of that hybrid model of work,” Meloy said, adding the building spans 22,000 square feet.
Edge1343 includes a fitness center, podcast studio, conference room, event space, old-style video games, smoothie and barista bar, indoor/outdoor lounges, cigar and beverage lockers and, soon, a dog park.
Meloy owned the building and the company DRS which was formerly housed there and sold it about 10 years ago. The company that bought it moved out and put the building on the market about a year ago. Meloy and his partners bought it. It needed a lot of work.
“The same cubicles when I bought it the first time were still here,” he said.
Hill Street Construction was the general contractor, and Joe Dickey Electric did all of the electrical work.
Jon Stock, a supervisor with Hill Street, said the building was a gloomy place when the work started.
“Everything was kind of outdated – old flooring and cubicles,” he said.
Jeff Molody, a foreman for Joe Dickey Electric, said the company replaced outdated lighting with modern LED, helping to bring life back to the building.
“And instead of building something new, let’s bring something that’s been here a while … and bring it up to date,” Melody said. “I’ve been at Dickey Electric 16 years, and I’ve been coming here almost that amount of time with the different companies that have been in here. To see the new life into this, it’s really nice to see.”
Meloy said the business is a unique concept for the Mahoning Valley.
“This is modeled off of three guys and a bar napkin,” he said, jokingly. “… You have to go to an NFL city to see something like this.”
Meloy said Edge1343 also fits with the Belmont Corridor Redevelopment initiative by the city, Liberty Township and other partners.
Pictured at top: Mike Meloy, co-owner of Edge1343, stands in front of the event space.