Plans sink for upgrading downtown building

By David Skolnick

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

After failing to receive state historic tax credits twice and other setbacks, the plans of the owner of an agency to revitalize the long-vacant Kress Building in the city’s downtown are essentially over.

“I haven’t raised the white flag yet, but I’m pretty close,” said Jimmy Sutman, owner and founder of the Purple Cat.

The agency provides job skills, daily living skills and recreational activities for about 125 mentally and physically impaired people headquartered at the downtown Rica Building, 117 S. Champion St.

It also operates out of the Pearl Street Mission on the city’s East Side and a 52-acre farm in Coitsville.

“Unfortunately, my ship is sinking as far as my involvement with” buying and relocating the Purple Cat’s main office to Kress at 111 W. Federal St. “We gave it a really good try and invested some money into it. But [nearly] everybody was very luke-warm on the governmental side towards the project; probably not even luke-warm, but on the cold side.”

Renovating the Kress Building, vacant since the early 1990s, would cost about $3.5 million to $5 million.

“Kress was a stretch and a gamble [financially] for me,” Sutman said. “It doesn’t look like we’re a player for the Kress Building.”

Kress received a $1.2 million federal historic preservation tax credit, he said.

If the Purple Cat doesn’t renovate and relocate to Kress, the federal tax credit is likely to stay with the building if another project is proposed for it, Sutman said.

But the Purple Cat failed to obtain a $1.2 million state historic preservation tax credit for Kress in July and December 2011.

The city’s economic development office is seeking a Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund grant for the building, but that too isn’t going well, Sutman said.

Sutman wants a $750,000 grant. But if one is awarded for the Kress Building, Sutman said state officials are willing to provide only half that amount.

“Those are quite significant blows,” he said. “We gave it a really good try. The Kress Building would have been a financial risk, but I wanted to do it.”

The Kress Building, which has numerous holes in its roof and significant water damage, is owned by the Youngstown Area Community Improvement Corp., a nonprofit downtown property agency run by the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.

Thomas Humphries, the chamber’s president and chief executive officer, said Sutman’s project “is not far enough along for the state to issue a tax credit.”

Humphries wants Sutman to apply a third time for a state tax credit in June.

“The CIC’s perspective on this project is it’s still viable with” Sutman, Humphries said. “We continue to partner with him to get that credit and we support his project 100 percent.”

The plan is office space on the first floor, Purple Cat services on the second, and apartments for 20 mentally and physically impaired people on the third floor.

The building’s facade and its steel skeleton are in good shape, but the rest of Kress needs to be replaced, Sutman said.

Sutman is looking at other locations for the Purple Cat, including the former Anthony’s on the River at 15 Oak Hill Ave., and a vacant building at 2832 Fifth Ave., next to the Mahoning County jail.