CAMPBELL — With several new city officials seated, further efforts to demolish uninhabitable buildings to eradicate blight across the city are continuing to move forward, with plans to tear down five condemned structures.

“I’m aggressively cleaning this city up and getting rid of blight,” council President George Levendis said after Wednesday’s regular city council meeting at city hall.

The five structures set to meet the wrecking ball are the old Lucky Rooster, a tavern at 3294 Wilson Ave., that closed several years ago, along with residences at 116 and 166 Madison Ave., 619 Whipple Ave. and 35 Walters St., Levendis noted.

All of them are in deplorable condition, which includes buckled foundations and roofs caving in, he said.

In December 2018, the Lucky Rooster held a fundraiser to benefit the family of Amy Acevedo, who lost her five children in a Youngstown house fire earlier that month.

Fire Chief Steve Dubos has worked with the Mahoning County Land Bank, which will own the properties, Levendis noted. He added that funds for the work will come from MCLB grant monies.

Levendis, however, was unable to provide a start date for tearing down the former business and the homes.

The demolitions will follow the razing of more than 70 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. row houses over the past several years, something that the late Mayor Bryan K. Tedesco aggressively pursued after many of them had been declared dangerous and beyond repair.

In better times, the structures were home to many immigrants who came to the city to work in the thriving steel mills, many of which dotted the Mahoning River. When the industry began to see its demise on Sept. 19, 1977, a day infamously known regionally as “Black Monday,” many of the homes started slowly falling into disrepair and, over several decades, have contributed to heavily blighted neighborhoods.

Once the land bank assumes control over the five properties, it can build new homes or use the parcels as it sees fit, Levendis said.

ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

Also at Wednesday’s session, council adopted a resolution to hire Youngstown-based GPD Group to provide engineering services for the city’s storm sewer improvement project.

The infrastructure work, for which bids may be submitted by early 2026, will entail cleaning, rehabilitating, upgrading, redesigning and replacing several catch basins, manholes and sewers citywide, Levendis noted.

In addition, the project, estimated to take two or three months, will include assessing the pieces of infrastructure to determine the extent of rehabilitation required for each one, according to the resolution.

Funding for the work will come from a $630,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant, with construction costs expected to begin around $450,000.

In other business, the Rev. Andrew Bartek, pastor of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church, announced that free hot meals will be offered to city residents from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the church, 301 Struthers-Liberty Road.