Staff file photo / Ed Runyan Officials from the Youngstown Fire Department and National Transportation Safety Board investigate damage from the May 28 explosion at Realty Tower in downtown Youngstown.

YOUNGSTOWN — The owner of the heavily damaged Realty Tower in downtown Youngstown has submitted a partial demolition plan to the Mahoning County Building Department.

In a prepared statement Friday, YO Properties 47 LLC, which owns Realty, and LY Property Management LLC, which manages the structure, said: “This has been a fluid process on a shortened holiday week. Nevertheless the detailed demolition plan has been completed and (was) submitted along with our request for” a permit.

A county building department employee said her office gave YO Properties a lengthy list of items to provide with the demolition plan. There are some missing pieces and YO Properties said they would follow up Monday with the rest of the plan, the employee said.

Demolition won’t start until after the residents of the 23 apartments at Realty have an opportunity to have some of their personal items retrieved from the building, assuming that is possible.

Firefighters are planning to go into the building, starting Wednesday, to retrieve some personal belongings of the tenants that will fit in a “small standard size carry-on suitcase” with dimensions of 22 inches by 14 inches by 9 inches, according to an LV email on Tuesday.

In the Friday statement, YO and LV wrote: “Our priorities are reflected in the demolition time line proposed to the city. The time line outlines the retrieval of Realty Tower tenants’ possessions as mid-next week with demolition beginning shortly thereafter, or the week of July 15.”

Large demolition equipment at the Realty site is in place.

Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said Brian Angelili, who owns YO Properties, told him Tuesday that enough of the 13-story Realty Tower is expected to be demolished by Aug. 2 to allow the nearby Stambaugh Building and International Towers to reopen.

YO and LV wrote: “This is a highly coordinated operation involving engineers, officials and experts. As such, there is an element of fluidity to this process, but at the heart of this operation is the people affected by this event, and it is for their solace and the healing of Youngstown that we are working through this process.”

Mayor Jamael Tito Brown on June 24 gave YO Properties 47 LLC until Friday to take the steps to demolish the building or the city would take legal action.

The building on East Federal Street sustained extensive damage in the May 28 explosion, destroying much of the first floor, which housed a Chase Bank branch. One worker was killed while several other workers and building tenants were injured.

The tenants in the 23 apartments at Realty were evacuated immediately and haven’t returned.

A June 14 preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, stated a four-person scrap removal crew, engaged by GreenHeart Companies of Boardman — also owned by Angelili — was working in a basement area underneath the building’s sidewalk removing old utility lines when a crew member sawed three times into a pipe mistakenly believing it to not have natural gas in it. That caused the explosion.

Also, the Stambaugh Building, which houses the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, has been closed since May 28. International Towers, which houses about 170 people, was evacuated June 14 after a structural engineering report four days earlier stated all buildings within a 210-foot radius of Realty had to be closed as they’re in a “collapse zone.”

Several downtown stakeholders have urged YO Properties to stabilize and save the 101-year-old historic building.

YO Properties and LY Property said in a statement last week that at least five structural engineering companies “have independently concluded that while the building could potentially be stabilized, its longevity could not be guaranteed or insured,” and that Realty would be demolished.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, will have a roundtable discussion Monday with government officials, business owners, workers and residents about the Realty Tower explosion.

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