Youngstown plans $1.5M makeover of South Side grocery store

YOUNGSTOWN — City council is expected to consider Wednesday spending $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan money to rehabilitate and redevelop the long-dormant Bottom Dollar grocery store on the city’s South Side as well as $5.9 million in ARP funds for park improvements.

Also on council’s agenda is legislation to permit the board of control to hire a contractor for up to $19.8 million for a major sewer line replacement project and to borrow that amount from the state to fund the work.

Regarding the Bottom Dollar building at 2649 Glenwood Ave., Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said Thursday, “My vision is that it becomes a community hub for some of the things that are missing in that neighborhood.”

The Village of Healing, a Euclid agency, will be the building’s main tenant and will open an infant mortality clinic, Brown said.

The Village of Healing received a $188,250 state grant in June to support the mental health needs of pregnant and postpartum women in Mahoning, Trumbull and Cuyahoga counties.

Brown said he also wants the building to have space to address “food insecurities” in the area — there isn’t a full-scale grocery store on the South Side — and would like a bank and/or pharmacy in that 18,000-square- football building.

“We’ve got some initial thoughts on what we believe might be there, but we’re going to have some citizens’ engagement and outreach for that,” Brown said.

He added, “It’s going to be tenant-driven, need-based as well. It’s not just going to be we give the space to anybody. It will be for our needs.”

Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said bid documents should be ready in 30 days and a contract done by the end of the year.

Bottom Dollar went out of business and closed its three stores in Youngstown in January 2015 after the company was sold to Aldi Inc.

The city acquired the Glenwood Avenue property, the former Cleveland Elementary School and a playground, from Aldi

ONE Health Ohio announced in April 2016 it wanted to buy the building and turn it into a health facility as well as a food distribution site and possibly a pharmacy. The city sold the building to ONE Health for $150,000 in March 2018, but it decided not to do the project and the city refunded the $150,000 in June 2023.

ACTION (Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods) announced in November it plans to expand its mobile market’s presence at the location and hoped to open a marketplace at the end of this year.

Brown said the mobile food truck will be part of the project. He wouldn’t commit Thursday to providing ACTION space inside the building because it’s early in the process.

PARK ARP PLAN

City council set aside $10.5 million of its $82.7 million ARP allocation in June 2022 to improve parks.

Less than $2 million of that amount has been spent to date, but that’s about to change in a big way Wednesday, when council considers five pieces of legislation to spend $5.9 million to improve 10 parks.

The legislation would authorize the board of control to hire contractors for five projects.

“I’m so happy,” said Clemate Franklin, the city’s parks and recreation director. “It’s very inspiring to myself and to a lot of the constituents. We’re all so excited for the newly-remodeled parks.”

The work includes new sports courts and fields, playground equipment, trails and building improvements, Franklin said.

One proposal is to spend $1.7 million to improve Borts Field, Wick Park and the Eugenia Atkinson Recreation Center. Another is to spend $1.5 million for work at the Roy Street Park and the West End Field.

The other projects are $1.3 million for Lynn Park and Falls Park; $980,000 for Crandall Park and the Princeton-Market greenspace project; and $440,000 for Homestead Park.

SEWER PROJECT

City council will also be asked to vote on legislation authorizing the board of control to hire a contractor for an interceptor sewer replacement project with an estimated cost of $19.8 million.

The project would replace about 10,800 feet of 48- and 60-inch sewer lines along the Mahoning River from Division Street to West Avenue.

Council is expected to consider a separate ordinance to enter into a loan contract for the project’s total cost with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Pollution Control Fund.

The project would eliminate three sewage overflows in the city’s system. It would start in three to four months and take about a year to complete, Shasho said.

The project “is not an official part of the long-term control plan, but it eliminates three overflows,” he said. “It’s related to the consent decree, but not part of it.”

The federal consent decree is a three-part plan to reduce the city’s sewage discharges.