Board of control approves lease renewal for AT&T

The company would pay $4.5 million to the city in rent over 10 years.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s board of control approved a lease renewal to keep an AT T service and maintenance center, which employs about 200, in Youngstown for at least an additional five years.

The deal also includes an option after five years to extend the contract another five years.

AT T, and its predecessors including Ameritech and the Ohio Bell Telephone Co., have rented the 20-acre parcel off Salt Springs Road near Meridian Road for the past 15 years.

The city built the facility specifically for the communications company.

The rent paid to the city by the company during the past 15 years went toward the cost of construction, said city Finance Director David Bozanich, a board of control member.

AT&T paid about $680,000 annually in rent when the original 15-year lease expired May 31, he said.

The new deal calls for AT&T to pay $411,400 in the contract’s first fiscal year, retroactive to June 1. The company’s annual rent increases to $491,661 in the 10th year. Over the 10 years, AT&T would pay $4.5 million to the city.

“This is good for the city and the company,” Bozanich said Friday after the board approved the lease renewal. “We keep the jobs in the city, we get revenue and they have a lower rent.”