Awning OK’d for downtown bar

By David Skolnick

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Eight months after first requesting permission for an awning, Xclusive, a downtown bar, received approval for it.

The city’s Design Review Committee approved the black-and-gold vinyl awning Tuesday after its members went inside the bar to see it for themselves.

The committee, which oversees exterior work to buildings in the city’s downtown and nearby, declined to make a decision during a June 2011 meeting because the awning’s designs were incomplete. A bar manager submitted a hand-written sketch in June.

The bar formerly was called the Love Lounge, in honor of the Love family that runs the establishment. The name change occurred to improve the bar’s image, its manager said last June.

Some DRC members said Tuesday that they weren’t comfortable with a black vinyl awning at Xclusive, a tudor-fa ßade building at 15 W. Federal St.

The awning would be hung about 7 feet high, and is 8 feet long and 3 feet deep.

But the committee members approved it Tuesday after Michael Sabella, who works for Massullo Partners, owners of the building, provided designs for the awning, and later showed it to the members.

The awning, which cost about $1,800, will be up in a few weeks, Sabella said.