MVHS Purchases Parking Lot Next to Tyler History Center

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Mahoning Valley Historical Society has purchased the parking lot between the Tyler History Center and the Mahoning Avenue Bridge for $195,000.

The downtown lot was purchased from Mary Coyne Investments LLC. It is administered by ABM Parking Services and open for daily and monthly public parking for a fee.

“We appreciate the opportunity given [to the historical society] by the Coyne family in offering to sell us this parking lot,” Bill Lawson, executive director of MVHS, said in a press release. “And we are thankful beyond measure for the perpetual support of our late great benefactor, Jeanne Deibel Tyler, whose generous bequest to MVHS provided the funding for this purchase.”

Lawson said the lot will provide new opportunities, including parking for visitors to Tyler History Center, and as a site for future expansion of the center.

“We are now working on plans for improvements in the nearer term to better connect the lot to Tyler History Center,” Lawson said.

Tyler History Center is a museum of Youngstown and Mahoning Valley history, located at 325 W. Federal St., downtown.

The history of the area where the newly purchased parking lot sits will be commemorated in outdoor exhibit panels that the MVHS plans to erect.

“We want to remember Spring Common, a historic place next to the lot that no longer exists,” Lawson said.

Spring Common, which Lawson called “downtown’s other public square” [in addition to Central Square], was at the intersection of Front Street, West Federal Street, Fifth Avenue and the Mahoning Avenue (Spring Common) Bridge. It was removed during construction of the current bridge in the late 1940s.

Pictured at top: The Mahoning Valley Historical Society has purchased the parking lot adjacent to the Tyler History Center.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.