YOUNGSTOWN — Annissa Neider, an architect working for the new owners of the Huntington Bank high-rise downtown, 26 Market St., discussed plans to convert the top nine floors of the building into homes.

“That would entail the first four floors remaining commercial office space very similar to what is now, and then the top nine floors becoming residential space,” she said over videoconference with the city’s Design Review Committee. Neider’s company is in Canfield.

When asked about the new ownership, Neider said it is a development firm from New York City known as “22 Market Street Ohio LLC.”

Neider said she does not know what prospective commercial tenants might move into the first five floors, including the areas Huntington Bank formerly occupied. “I am just applying for the change in use of the building,” she said.

“This is just a change in use from commercial to mixed use,” she said.

She noted that the building was designed by famous Detroit architect Albert Kahn with the original part built in 1920 and the second part in 1921.

“Inside the building it is still very historic looking, with marble floors, marble wainscoting, a lot of the original oak trim, original oak doors,” she said, noting that “those all have to be maintained.

“The corridors (in the building) will be brought back to their historic charm … with the corridors remaining historic,” she said. The residential units and office spaces would be “modernized for modern-day uses,” she said.

The cleaning of the building that will take place will involve “proper historic processes,” she said.

In talking about the residential floors, she said they will be geared to “the young professional or even the empty nester.” But she added, “It’s open to anybody who is interested in living downtown.”

Each floor will have three two-bedroom units, four one-bedroom units and one studio unit. “Each unit has a full kitchen, bathroom, living space and then obviously bedroom and closet space,” she said.

The residential units will be “around a central corridor, using the same historical openings to get into each unit,” she said. It is expected to have about 72 residential units.

“We’re in the infancy stages of planning and development,” she said. “We’re still doing a lot of field investigations. No demolition work has occurred yet, so there is a lot of exploratory demolition that needs to be done throughout the process,” she said.

Water sprinklers will be installed throughout the building to meet building codes. There is no information to provide on how the designs on the commercial floors will look, she said.

“Right now we are just focusing on the residential units and any historic architecture in the corridors, and bringing the building up to code,” she said.

She said no changes are planned for the exterior other than “potentially some cleaning. We’re just going to breathe a little new life into this building.”

Historic consultants the owners are working with are “very focused on that first floor … where the bank lobby used to be. It’s such a beautiful space and it needs to be preserved as such,” Neider said.

A former church on Boardman Street is part of the Huntington Bank Building, and it will be marketed as commercial space, she said.

Design Review Committee member Jonathan Imler asked whether any feasibility study had been done regarding the demand for additional housing downtown or plans for where the residents would park.

Neider said she assumes the owners “did their due diligence,” but she cannot speak to what the company has studied.

Councilman Julius Oliver commented on the project, saying, “We know downtown is increasingly becoming a place where people want to come to do business and live.”

He said in 2015, the downtown’s slogan was “‘work, play, eat,’ and now we can call it ‘work, play, eat, live’ because people are increasingly wanting to live downtown.” He said he looks forward to seeing the project develop.

Committee member Bill D’Avignon said there was no “action” for the committee to take regarding the project. But the committee approved a “general motion of support for the approach that is being proposed” for the project.

The committee also gave approval to install an air-conditioning condenser on or along the North Phelps Street side of the Wick Tower, 34 W. Federal St., downtown.

Its purpose is to increase the cooling capacity of the West 34 restaurant and bar on the first floor. The restaurant had to shut down about two weeks ago because the temperature got too high, one of the two owners of the business told the committee by videoconference.

The committee’s final approval is contingent upon Clayton Heating and Air Conditioning bringing back drawings to the city’s planning and economic development department showing the location for the unit, color and other details.

Richard Kaszlowski, an owner of 34 West, told the committee the condenser, which will be about 4-feet-by-4-feet-by-1-foot, is needed to provide better cooling during the summer. An air-conditioning condenser releases heat from the cooling system.

There was discussion of painting the unit a brown-red to make it blend in with the color of the brick exterior.

Calvin Clayton of Clayton Heating and Air Conditioning, said the county building department said the device would have to go through the Design Review Committee to get approval to make it as visually appealing as possible. There is a fenced area on the outside of the building where the unit could go, Clayton said.