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AUSTINTOWN -- Residents heard updates Thursday from township officials about new and expanding businesses during the Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber's Good Evening Austintown event.
The meeting was hosted by Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course.
Trustees Monica Deavers and Robert Santos reminded the audience that the chain store Meijer will be coming soon. Deavers said that the store is a $20 million to $25 million investment and that it will bring 300 new jobs.
"It's a very big deal that Meijer is coming here," Deavers said. "Everyone was saying how it wasn't going to come here, and we're getting it here."
A timetable for the new store was not offered during the presentation.
Deavers also noted that the Denny's restaurant on Mahoning Avenue, which closed in 2019, has undergone refurbishing and will soon be reopening.
"Denny's is becoming a Denny's again," she said. "They're remodeling it now and have put a new roof on it. We don't know when the grand opening is, but we are having a new Denny's."
Deavers also said the building that once housed a bar called Bill's Place will now be the home of Abigail's Bakery.
"If anyone has memories of Bill's Place like I have, maybe Abigail's Bakery will be pretty interesting," Deavers said.
The trustees also said that the Mahoning Avenue building that was once a Pizza Hut will likely become a Mexican restaurant in the near future.
Along with the new food venues, a Take 5 Lube and Car Wash also will be coming to Austintown. The trustees said that ABC Kitchen, Coaches Burger Bar, Cubbison Company and Optical Solutions will all be undergoing expansions.
The trustees said that adding new businesses to fill vacant areas has been one of the township's main goals.
"When we first got into office, the biggest thing we pushed for was curb appeal," Santos said. "So we made some changes to some of our zoning policies, which when we have those new businesses coming in, we make sure we have that curb appeal, because we want individuals coming to Austintown -- and not just seeing pavement."
Residents also heard an update from Shea MacMillan, the chamber's vice president of economic development, who said that two speculative development buildings will soon be constructed, one in Trumbull County and the other in Mahoning County, which will provide more square footage for future business ventures in the area.