YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision that Dominion Energy Ohio — and not the city — had to pay $170,838.03 to relocate a gas line on a section of North Phelps Street that is being turned into a pedestrian mall.

The court ruled 3-0 Wednesday against an appeal by Dominion. Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney ruled Dec. 13, 2018, in favor of the city in this long-running dispute.

This goes back to February 2013 when the city hired Marucci and Gaffney Excavating Co. to replace a 400-foot section of sanitary sewer line on North Phelps Street between West Federal and West Commerce streets. When the company began work, it discovered that AT&T and Ohio Edison duct banks and vaults, which house their utility lines, weren’t properly identified by those companies and halted the project.

After the city learned the proper locations of the banks and vaults, it determined those utilities would have to be relocated to the northern sidewalk along Phelps Street in order to replace the sewer line, which in turn required Dominion to move its gas line.

Dominion and the city agreed that the company would advance the cost of relocating its line and the city would deposit $150,000 in escrow with the two sides later litigating who would be responsible for the cost, according to the court of appeals decision. That cost ended up being $170,838.03.

Dominion filed a complaint Oct. 16, 2017, to have the city pay the cost while the city argued it was the responsibility of the utility company.

Sweeney ruled in favor of the city because “utilities are required to relocate their facilities within a public right-of-way at their own expense when requested to do so by a municipality in order to reconstruct a sewer.”

Dominion filed an appeal Jan. 8, 2019, contending Sweeney erred in her decision.

Among its arguments was the city discriminated against Dominion by not charging the other utilities.

But the appeals court determined AT&T paid more than $350,000 for relocation and placement of its line and the construction of a new manhole and Youngstown Thermal, which provides heat to some downtown businesses, also paid an undetermined amount of money to relocate its steam lines.

“The record does not contain any evidence that the city failed to provide Dominion with open, nondiscriminatory and competitively neutral access to its public ways,” Judge Gene Donofrio wrote in the decision.

A project began Monday to replace the sanitary sewer line on that same section of North Phelps Street and build a pedestrian mall.

Marucci and Gaffney was awarded the contract after submitting a $1,343,060 proposal. It was the lowest of three proposals for the work.

The project includes a 24-inch sewer line, an 8-inch waterline and the development of a pedestrian walkway.

dskolnick@tribtoday.com