Youngstown Design Review Approves 2 Requests

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Youngstown Design Review Committee this morning approved requests from a nursing school and a nightclub.

The committee granted a request from Mercy College of Ohio to display a vinyl mesh banner for one year on its building at 932 Belmont Ave., a block south of St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

The college is part of Cincinnati-based Mercy Health, which also operates St. Elizabeth as part of Mercy Health Youngstown. Mercy College established the Youngstown campus when St. Elizabeth closed its nursing school.

The 22-by-35-foot banner, which will face downtown Youngstown, will give the college greater visibility, Christine Fowler said. Fowler is admissions specialist and administrative assistant at the college. When she schedules meetings, those invited often have trouble finding the campus, she explained.

“Growing up in Youngstown and having a 27-year-old daughter who thought she needed to go away to school,” Fowler told the committee, “it’s a very powerful message that we have a terrific nursing education locally.”

“The one concern we always have with fabric banners is they have a [short] life and after a year they start to get a little on the shabby side,” John DeFrance, a member of the committee, said. DeFrance is an architect with Olsavsky-Jaminet Architects, Youngstown.

The banner will cost about $4,200 and will be attached to the building with grommets at every two feet, Fowler said.

The other item on the committee’s agenda was a request by local artist Christian Mrosko to install an 8-foot-by-16-inch mural on the exterior face of So So’s Club, 232 North Ave.

In September, the committee approved façade improvements for the nightclub, being reopened by Ray Rue, who owns Ray’s Fish Market in Liberty Township.

Among Mrosko’s other works are the “Welcome to Youngstown” mural drivers see as they enter the downtown on Market Street and the mural next to the Youngstown Playhouse on the South Side.

The mural for So-So’s, to be painted on four aluminum composite panels, will feature a nightclub interior that shows people listening to music and dancing. It will be modeled on – but not directly copy — Eddie Barnes’ painting “Sugar Shack,” which was featured in the opening credits of the 1970s’ television series, “Good Times.”

“It’s an over-30 club so that’s why they wanted to go with that theme,” Mrosko informed the committee. “They just want something with this kind of feel.”

The committee enthusiastically approved Mrosko’s request.

“The other pieces you’ve done in town are just great,” DeFrance told him.

Pictured: A rendering of Mercy College of Ohio’s proposed banner design for its Belmont Avenue building.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.