Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Youngstown Councilwoman Anita Davis, D-6th Ward, stands outside a former McDonald’s along Market Street on the city’s South Side that Youngstown purchased to convert into a community center.

YOUNGSTOWN — City council plans to consider Wednesday spending about $1.4 million in American Rescue Plan funds, including $800,000 to renovate a former McDonald’s on the South Side the city purchased to convert into a community center.

City council authorized buying the shuttered business at 2525 Market St. on Aug. 24, 2022, for $160,000. The board of control approved the acquisition Sept. 22, 2022. The restaurant closed in 2017.

“It will be a community center,” Councilwoman Anita Davis, D-6th Ward, said. “It will be a place for organizations and groups to hold events and meetings. We’ll also have a women’s pantry there.”

Davis said, “This is an old new thing. Years ago, we used to have these centers. There’s a definite need to have this.”

The ward’s community police officer also can use the building as office space, she said.

The $800,000 also will include installing furnishings and equipment, Davis said.

City council gave $2 million in ARP funds on April 6, 2022, to each of its seven members — $14 million in total — to use for projects in their wards.

Between the $160,000 purchase and the $800,000 in renovations, Davis will have used almost half of her ARP money on this one project.

Davis also is sponsoring legislation at Wednesday’s meeting to have the board of control enter into a contract with an architect to design the renovations and a separate piece to hire a contractor to do the improvement work.

The $800,000 will fund both of those contracts, Davis said.

Also, Davis is sponsoring legislation for the meeting to rescind a $100,000 ARP allocation, approved Sept. 21, 2022, for sidewalk replacement along the Glenwood Avenue corridor. That funding came from her $2 million.

The Glenwood Avenue corridor will still see sidewalk replacements, Davis said.

What happened is council approved sidewalk replacements on April 19, 2023, and Davis increased her amount from $250,000 to $350,000 with the intention of using the additional money for the corridor.

Because of that, Davis said the separate $100,000 legislation for the corridor that was passed Sept. 21, 2022, needs to be rescinded.

Also Wednesday, Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward, is sponsoring an ordinance to give $262,500 from his ward’s ARP fund for improvement work, programs and to assist with operational support at the Associated Neighborhood Centers’ McGuffey Centre, 1649 Jacobs Road.

In addition, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown is sponsoring two pieces of legislation to use ARP funds.

One is to spend $48,608 with Diamond Waterfronts, a Rootstown company, to install a kayak launch that is compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act at McKelvey Lake on the city’s East Side.

The other is to spend $28,000 for Culley Construction LLC, a Stahlstown, Pa., company, to build a small building at the city-owned Henry Stambaugh Golf Course on the North Side.

The city received $82.8 million in ARP funds and council has allocated all but about $6.5 million. The city has spent about $16 million of it so far.

Brown previously mentioned taking a portion of the $10.5 million for parks and recreation projects and $2 million for property acquisition to permit the city to buy land for business development and to help rebuild neighborhoods in order to free up some ARP money.

The city has to appropriate its ARP funds by the end of this year and spend all of it by the end of 2026.