Wick Park Project Advances with City’s Help

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The city Board of Control has approved entering into a memorandum of understanding with Youngstown CityScape and the Youngstown Rotary Foundation for the second of five $20,000 installments it is making toward modernizing the pavilion in Wick Park on the North Side.

The board – Mayor John McNally, Finance Director David Bozanich and Law Director Martin Hume – took the action at Thursday’s meeting.

The Rotary Club of Youngstown announced a month ago it would commit $350,000 over three years toward the pavilion upgrade. Those improvements include installing a new roof, windows, soffits and fascia, gutters, and adding ramps and handicapped-accessible restrooms.

“The pavilion will stay as it is. We’re not demolishing the pavilion,” Sharon Letson, Youngstown CityScape executive director, said. “The integrity of the building will stay, but it needs new gutters. It needs new windows. It needs soffits and fascia.”

Youngstown Rotary, of which Letson is a member, was looking for a project to mark its centennial, she said.

The club has supported other city projects, including paying for and constructing playgrounds at Wick Park and at Harding Elementary School, where it also has a mentoring program, said Bill Lawson, president of the Youngstown Rotary. The pavilion upgrades were “very much needed at Wick Park,” he said.

In early November, Lawson reported, his club had on hand two-thirds of the money pledged toward its $350,000 commitment.

“We feel we have enough funding to begin the project,” Letson said, which includes getting the final drawings completed and project costs updated. The most recent estimate of costs is “several years old,” she said.

“In the beginning of 2017, we will probably be able to do the roof, the gutters, the soffits and the fascia to stop the water going into the foundation,” she predicted.

CityScape recently replaced the outdoor fitness equipment in the park by using funds it secured from the Western Reserve Health Foundation.

“CityScape and Rotary over the past few years have really taken Wick Park under their wings,” McNally said. “We’re very happy the work hopefully can start pretty soon after the first of the year.”

Following the meeting, Shasho offered updates on the Lincoln Avenue project, which is nearing completion, and the yearlong Wick Avenue upgrade.

Originally slated for completion Dec. 13, the $1.4 million Lincoln Avenue streetscape and safety enhancement project encountered “unforeseen circumstances” associated with the storm sewer work that added time to the job, Shasho said. The completion date was extended to Dec. 23, although he believes the work will be done before that.

“I was just up there the other day,” he said. “It looks fantastic.”

A meeting is scheduled for Monday to complete the schedule of the remaining work, he said.

“There’s a chance that some of the brick work may not be able to go in due to the weather,” he added. “We’ll stabilize that for the winter, then come back in the spring and finish it up, but I think we’re ready to get the road open within the next couple weeks.”

Work on the $4.1 million Wick Avenue upgrade, which got underway in mid-September, is “a little bit ahead of schedule in some areas,” Shasho said. The water line is complete and work on the sanitary is continuing.

“Once they get the sanitary sewer in, they’ll be working on the electrical duct banks and they’re following right behind with some of the roadway work, as much as they can before winter hits,” he said.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.