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YOUNGSTOWN - City Council is expected Wednesday to vote on the proposed $350,000 sale of the former Bottom Dollar grocery store to Potential Development, a pre-K through grade 12 school system for students with autism.
Potential Development was the lone proposal to buy the building, vacant since January 2015, from the city. It wants to invest $1,066,067 into the building for a K-3 school.
City council chose at its Sept. 16 to wait to vote because of Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, wanted to know if there would be an issue with selling the building because the city used $1.2 million in American Rescue Plan funds in 2024 to renovate the 18,285-square-foot building for a different purpose.
It appears that concern has been addressed and the city is permitted to sell the long-vacant grocery store.
Potential Development submitted the lone bid for the building by the Aug. 12 deadline.
Paul Garchar, Potential Development's CEO, said after submitting the proposal that the school system is crowded at its K-6 building and wants to use the former Bottom Dollar location for some of those students.
The former Bottom Dollar building, 2649 Glenwood Ave., is within two miles of Potential Development's three other locations.
The school system has 345 students in total with the pre-school located on East Indianola Avenue and its K-6 school and its high school, for students in grades 7-12, both on Market Street. It opened in 1953 in Youngstown as a special needs preschool program on West Woodland Avenue and expanded to become a K-12 charter school in 2001.
The Potential Development proposal states: "Our vision is to transform the former Bottom Dollar building into a dedicated elementary campus serving students with autism in kindergarten through third grade. The facility will provide a comprehensive educational environment where students receive individualized academic instruction alongside integrated therapeutic services, including speech, occupational and physical therapy. The proposed school will include up to 15 classrooms, three therapy suites, a sensory room, an indoor playground area and administrative offices designed to support both student success and operational excellence."
The proposal states the building work would begin in January 2027 and be ready for classes by August 2027.
OTHER LEGISLATION
Also Wednesday, council will consider allowing the board of control to enter into an $854,900 engineering services contract with GDP Group of Akron for project management, construction administration and field inspection for a major pump station addition project that distributes city water to most of Austintown and Canfield townships.
The Webb Road pump station project will connect two main waterlines to the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District waterline feed as well as build a road for the lines.
Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co. of Youngstown was awarded the $7,749,054 contract Sept. 24 by the board of control.
The work will be finished during the next 12 months.
Also, council will consider an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation for resurfacing of several streets with the work starting in May 2027.
The roads are U.S. Route 62 from Williamson to South avenues, South Avenue from Williamson Avenue to the U.S. Route 62 eastbound on-ramp, state Route 193 (Wirt Street) from Oxford Street to the city's northern limit, and state Route 289 (Rayen Avenue) from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to Fifth Avenue.
ODOT will handle the project with the city paying about $1.3 million, which is 40% to 50% of the total cost, Shasho said.
Council will vote Wednesday to permit the board of control to enter into an agreement with a consultant for roadway design services for Oak Hill Avenue from Woodland Avenue to High Street.
The design work will cost up to $300,000 with a $218,067 federal grant paying for most of it.
The actual resurfacing project will begin in mid-2028 and cost about $1.5 million with the city's share being about $280,000.
Shasho said: "The road needs paving and needs drainage work because it's so step that it has issues."