Downtown Landlord Treats Tenants to Ice Cream Social
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Wednesday, with temperatures in the downtown hovering in the high 80s and above, was one of those days made for ice cream.
And that’s exactly what employees of the 70 companies housed in Ohio One Corp.’s five downtown properties were treated to, courtesy of their landlord, who hosted a midday ice cream social presented by Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream & Yogurt.
“It’s a wonderful event to bring us all together,” said Barbara Orton, a mediator with Mahoning Valley Dispute Resolution Services, its offices on the third floor of the Ohio One Building.
“It’s nice to see the other tenants of the building come out and get to know each other a little bit,” said Orton, who chose vanilla caramel truffle.
Ohio One Corp. distributed 400 tickets to its tenants, said Richard Mills, president. He credited his sister, Kathy, with the idea.
“It’s just to show a little appreciation for the tenants we have downtown and thank them for being down here with us,” he remarked.
“We’ve had some parties in the past but we’ve never had this kind of turnout and it’s spectacular,” he added.
Between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., the employees of the tenants formed a steady flow from the buildings owned and managed by Ohio One. They lined up at the Handel’s truck parked in the lot next to City Centre One for a scoop of one of the six flavors offered.
Handel’s, headquartered in Canfield, purchased the truck earlier this year to increase its corporate event business, said Sarah Jackson, the company’s event coordinator.
“It’s a mobile store on wheels,” Jackson remarked. “It’s pretty cool. We can do basically anything we can do in a store.”
Cost to use the truck is $1,000 for two hours and includes servings for 200 people. Each additional person served is another $4.
Handel’s has served ice cream at large corporate gatherings such as company picnics or to celebrate milestones such as company anniversaries. “This is the first landlord we have dealt with, so it’s fun,” Jackson said. In Youngstown, chocolate pecan – one of yesterday’s selections – is “almost always” one of the six flavors offered.
The response was no surprise to Antwanette Welch, a business development officer at PNC Bank in City Centre One. Welch went with the strawberry cheesecake chunk.
“Handel’s ice cream is definitely a commodity,” Welch said. “We all stopped working for 10 minutes to talk about what kind of Handel’s ice cream we were going to get when the day arrived.
“There’s just so much excitement here,” she added. “We’re just really thrilled to have [Mills’] support. He really appreciates his tenants and all of the people that help support him, and it’s great to support Handel’s as well.”
Cindy Iacozili, a health information management systems manager for Mercy Health Health Information Management, was unaware of the social until she arrived yesterday morning at her office in the IBM Building and found a ticket on her chair. “So it was quite a surprise,” she said.
Iacozili also chose the strawberry cheesecake chunk. “It’s very nice,” she said. “It’s such a hot day and it’s really great to have ice cream on a hot day.”
Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
