YOUNGSTOWN — The city is planning another downtown street improvement project that could cost as much as $3.2 million with efforts to get half of the cost covered by grants.

The project, which would happen in 2023, is to Walnut Street from Front to Commerce streets, and to Boardman Street from Walnut to Market streets.

It would include reducing the number of lanes, road paving, streetscape work, lighting upgrades and adding green space, Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said.

The plan also includes a stairway on Walnut Street from Commerce to Wood streets on what is now a “steep hill that is blocked off” with some concrete barriers, near a YMCA parking lot, that would connect downtown with the Choffin Career & Technical Center, Shasho said.

The city administration is seeking council’s approval at its Wednesday meeting to allow the board of control to apply for a $300,000 federal grant for the project.

The city also plans to seek a $1.3 million Ohio Public Works Commission grant for the work, Shasho said.

The project will occur even without the grants, but Shasho said the city “will scale it back.” The stairway likely would be the first item to go if the city can’t get the grant money, he said.

The stairway would be similar to the one on Phelps Street that helps connect downtown to Youngstown State University, Shasho said.

The city plans to have design work on the project begin in December and expects to know if it received state funding by then, he said.

But the project wouldn’t begin until about spring 2023 and would take about nine months to complete, Shasho said.

This proposal ties in with the ongoing and future improvements to downtown streets, he said.

It started with an overhaul of Wick Avenue that was finished in 2017.

A $6,921,088 improvement project to Fifth Avenue, between West Federal Street and Eastbound Service Road, recently was finished.

Fifth and Wick avenues are the main connector roads between YSU and downtown.

The Fifth Avenue work was the first phase of the SMART2 (Strategic and Sustainable, Medical and Manufacturing, Academic and Arts, Residential and Recreation and Technology and Training) Network project.

The city and its partners were awarded a $10.85 million federal grant Dec. 6, 2018, with the rest of the estimated $26 million to $31 million coming from other federal and state funds as well as dollars and in-kind services from the project’s partners.

SMART2 projects are being done in phases through 2023.

The city awarded a $15,791,000 contract to Marucci and Gaffney Excavating Co. of Youngstown to be the contractor on the other work to Park and Rayen avenues and another section of Fifth Avenue as well as Commerce, Federal, Front and Phelps streets.

The work to South Phelps Street between West Federal and West Front streets started in June.

The SMART2 projects include paving, reducing the number of lanes of traffic, beautification work, new lights and improved crosswalks.

There are additional costs for design work and project management.

dskolnick@vindy.com