YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Friends, colleagues and community leaders will gather May 14 to celebrate the life and legacy of Hunter Morrison III, a nationally respected urban planner who helped shape the city’s modern vision for growth and revitalization.
A celebration of life will be held at 1 p.m. at the D.D. & Velma Davis Education and Visitor Center at Fellows Riverside Gardens, 123 McKinley Ave. The gathering is open to everyone who knew Morrison and is being organized by his longtime partner, Barbara Orton; his brothers, Edward and Thompson Morrison; and longtime friends Pat and David Sweet.
Speakers will include Mayor Derrick McDowell and former Mayor Jay Williams who will reflect on Morrison’s lasting impact on the city’s civic and development community.
Morrison, who died Dec. 16, 2025, at age 77, came to Youngstown in 2002 as director of Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies. In that role, he helped guide efforts to better connect the university with the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. He also played a central role in shaping Youngstown 2010, the city’s nationally recognized comprehensive plan to reimagine itself after decades of population loss and industrial decline around the idea of “smart shrinkage.”
“Hunter had a rare ability to see how an urban university could become central to both what a city was and what it could become,” David Sweet said. “He believed deeply in Youngstown’s potential and worked tirelessly to help the community build a stronger, more connected future.”
Before coming to Youngstown, Morrison served as Cleveland’s planning director for two decades, where he led the city’s first comprehensive development strategy in a generation and helped guide landmark projects that reshaped its identity, including the Gateway sports complex, Playhouse Square and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He also advanced early efforts to reconnect downtown Cleveland to its lakefront.
Morrison also served in the Peace Corps in the early 1970s as a town planner in Kenya and Nigeria.