Mahoning Commissioners OK Purchase of InfoCision Building
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Mahoning County Board of Commissioners, on a 2-to-1 vote, approved purchasing the former InfoCision building in Austintown from the Western Reserve Port Authority.
During the commissioners’ regular meeting Thursday, Commissioners Carol Rimedio-Righetti and David Ditzler voted in favor of acquiring the former call center building, located at 5740 Patriot Blvd., for $2,575,000. Commissioner Anthony Traficanti cast the dissenting vote on the purchase.
The port authority recently acquired the nearly 50,000-square-foot building, which has been vacant since the Covid-19 pandemic, at a cost of $2.5 million. The port authority’s board of directors had authorized the purchase of the building in October.
The building has ample parking, “wide open” interior spaces and eight separate entrances, suitable for any service that the port authority or the county would want to place in it or for any private sector developer, according to Anthony Trevena, WRPA executive director.
“There’s a lot of versatility in the building,” he said.
The vote followed a lengthy and often contentious discussion.
“We need to move ahead of the game. We need to get out of the old days and move ahead of the game and look for things that fit Mahoning County and our residents,” Rimedio-Righetti said.
“We have been assessing buildings for two years. We’ve been kicking the can down the road,” Ditzler said. He pointed out that the county missed the opportunity to purchase the former IBM Building, which eventually was acquired by the Mahoning County Historical Society last year.
Traficanti said he would feel comfortable with more time to consider the purchase. “There’s way more due diligence that needs to be done,” he said. “It’s a large investment.”
Traficanti also pointed out that the county has a new commissioner joining the board in January, Geno DiFabio, who defeated Ditzler in the general election earlier this month.
“He’s going to have a lot of questions and, honestly, it’s going to be me, Gino and Carol that’s going to have to make this building work,” he said.
“This isn’t a new process. This has been looked at for two years,” Rimedio-Righetti said.
“We’re talked to serve the people and the residents of Mahoning County during the time we’re in office, and the last I looked, my responsibility doesn’t end till Jan. 2,” Ditzler said.
DiFabio, in public remarks at the start of the meeting, argued in favor of delaying a decision.
“I want the time to do the due diligence on my own,” he said.
Ditzler said the county already had committed $25,000 in earnest money that would be lost if the board didn’t approve the purchase by the end of the week. Trevena confirmed that another buyer was interested in the property if the county passed on the purchase.
Among the uses being discussed for the building is a new location for the Mahoning County Board of Elections, now housed in Oakhill Renaissance Place. Attorney David Betras, chairman of the county elections board, said when the board moved from the Uptown area in 2011 that the Oakhill space wouldn’t work that well.
“From 2011 until 2024, I want all of you to think about how the political landscape has changed,” he said. The space is inadequate for early voting, which has increased nearly 70% from the 2011 move, and curbside voting. And election equipment has to be covered by tarps because of leaking pipes in the building.
The InfoCision building is in good shape but will require $2 million in upgrades to get it into move-in condition, said Randy Partika, project manager and development engineer for the port authority. Those include new interior lighting, carpeting, ceiling tiles, wall treatments and heating/ventilation/cooling systems.
“We’ve got twice the load needed for air conditioning, for instance, because it was a call center,” he said. “That’s very inefficient for offices.”
Other projected expenses include $1.6 million for a new roof and $1.2 million to redo the parking lot.
Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
