YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The city’s Board of Control approved contracts totaling $150,000 Thursday to advance efforts to redevelop the Belmont Avenue commercial corridor in the city and in Liberty Township.
One of the two agreements approved at the meeting were a $140,000 contract with MS Consultants, Youngstown, to provide consultation and engineering services for the Belmont Corridor Plan. The plan will use the document created by Eastgate Regional Council of Governments as a “foundational document,” beginning with the definition of the area covered in the study, a 4.7-mile span that extends from the intersection with West Federal Street to Excellence Drive in Liberty Township.
Youngstown was awarded a $200,000 technical assistance grant from the Ohio Appalachian Regional Commission on March 23 for the Mahoning Valley Commercial Corridors initiative.
“I’m happy to see that we’re moving forward with it,” Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, chairman of the Board of Control, said after the meeting. The city has been engaged with the township to its north on projects including the recent Bike Belmont event.
The plan will include MS Consultants engaging with Building a Better Belmont coalition, an established group of stakeholders, and include “key takeaways from previous public engagement conducted through the guidance of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in coordination with Healthy Community Partnership and” and previous efforts conducted during the 2020 plan study, according to the scope of services in the agreement.
Tasks will include data collection; identifying goals and objectives for land use/zoning analysis, including creating a future land use/zoning analysis and map; recommending streetscaping design and wayfinding standards; and identifying locations for strategic placement of public art.
MS Consultants also will develop recommendations based on its analysis.
The other contract approved is a $10,000 agreement with former city planning consultant Hunter Morrison for work related to the planning, development and project management for the Appalachian grant.
His work also will include working with the city’s director of community planning and economic development as a city representative to Western Reserve Transit Authority on its study of transit-oriented development improvements to the corridor to develop amendments to the city’s redevelopment code and map for the Belmont, Market Street and Mahoning Avenue commercial corridors, and to identify and pursue grants to support the development of the corridor in the city and township.