YOUNGSTOWN — City council is being asked to approve an amended contract Wednesday to permit the Western Reserve Port Authority to seek buyers for a number of city-owned properties, including the former Chill-Can plant site and the shuttered 20 Federal Place.

The city has had an agreement since June 17, 2020, with the WRPA to identify properties owned by the former available for “lease, sale, renovation or redevelopment and properties not owned by the city that could be obtained for the same purposes.”

The contract pays 5% of the gross transaction price of any sales.

While the contract has been in place for more than five years, the WRPA hasn’t sold any city-owned properties to date. But the WRPA has worked with the city on projects such as the former McGuffey Plaza and old Clark’s Bar & Billiards, said Nick Chretien, the authority’s planning and regional development director.

The amendment in front of city council would authorize the board of control to amend the contract to list eight specific city-owned sites, including the aborted Chill-Can plant on the lower East Side and 20 Federal Place downtown.

“This is the first legal step for the city to utilize the (memorandum of understanding) with the port authority, which has additional tools to market and develop these properties,” said Deputy Law Director Adam Buente.

The WRPA has greater flexibility to sell the properties than the city, which has restrictions under state law, Buente said. This doesn’t mean the city is turning over the properties to the WRPA, but gives it the ability to find buyers, he said.

State law “is written to give port authorities more flexibility with end-users to assist them,” Chretien said. “Our goal is to work with the city.”

The existing deal hasn’t included specific sites before and the amendment provides those locations.

Listed on the sites is123 parcels that make up the failed Chill-Can project and the six parcels for 20 Federal Place.

After a protracted legal fight that ended with M.J. Joseph Development Corp., the Chill-Can’s parent company, abandoning the case in the courts in early 2024 after it walked away from the project in late 2019, the city purchased the property at a Feb. 18 sheriff’s sale.

The city won a $1.5 million court judgment against M.J. Joseph. The city bought the 21-acre property with the minimum purchase price of $1,379,580, two-thirds of the county auditor’s value of the property, at the sheriff’s sale. The transfer of the property was finalized Aug. 27.

Outgoing Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said he wanted to turn the location into a small industrial park. Mayor-elect Derrick McDowell hasn’t said what he wants to do with the site.

Since it sent eviction notices to tenants at 20 Federal Place in July 2022, Youngstown has twice entered into agreements with companies to redevelop the building. Both have failed.

The latest came when city officials announced Aug. 12 that it ended a nonbinding agreement with Bluelofts Inc., a Dallas business that proposed a $55 million to $60 million project, and that $24 million in state and federal historic preservation tax credits would be forfeited.

The city purchased the building, 20 W. Federal St., in November 2004 after Phar-Mor, a national retail store company, went out of business. The property was the Phar-Mor Centre, the company’s corporate headquarters. Before that, it was the flagship location of Strouss’ department store for several decades.

Other sites on the amended list with the WRPA include 26 parcels at the former Republic Steel location in the Lansdowne neighborhood, eight parcels on and near the former South High Fieldhouse location — though the fieldhouse location sale is to be finalized Wednesday by council — two parcels on Oak Street Extension, a parcel on Court Street, two on Exal Court in the Salt Springs Road Business Park, and a parcel at 3033 Salt Springs Road in the same business park.

SOUTH HIGH

FIELDHOUSE SALE

City council will vote Wednesday to permit the board of control to sell 1840 Erie St., the address of the former South High Fieldhouse, to Valley Legends Sports Complex Inc. for $64,460, its appraised value.

Council had voted in June to sell the property to the complex, which is run by Valley Christian High School, which wants to raise $5 million to develop it into a new football field and track facility.

But the board didn’t approve the sale, wanting to amend the deal to include project milestones.

The updated deal requires Valley Legends to break ground within two years from the date of the title transfer and to have the project “substantially complete” within five years of the transfer. Valley Legends has to break ground on at least the football field and track improvements, the football field bleachers on one side of the field or the entranceway on Erie Street, under the contract.

While an extension of time can be made by written agreement between the city and Valley Legends, if one of the three projects isn’t finished in time or the project isn’t “substantially complete” in five years, the contract permits the city to buy back the property for the $64,600 sale price or “a market value appraisal of the property conducted no earlier than the expiration of the milestone date that triggered seller’s written notice to buyer.”

The former fieldhouse location was listed on the WRPA amended contract in case the city needed assistance with it, Chretien said.

OTHER LEGISLATION

Council also will vote Wednesday on an ordinance to give about 200 city employees — including department heads, non-management workers and those in the clerk of courts and court bailiff’s office — a 4% raise for 2026 plus an additional $1 an hour.

The 4% raises are the same increases given to those in the firefighters union.

The city does pattern negotiations with its unions, said Finance Director Kyle Miasek, meaning that whatever one union gets in pay raises is given to the others.

The union that represents city hall workers is receiving a 2.25% raise in 2026 as its members negotiated before the firefighters settled their contract. The city hall union also received a 1% raise in 2025 when the firefighters union received 2.5% that year.

When the city hall employees union contract is settled, its members will receive a 7.25% raise to make up the difference between what its members got and what the fire union received, Miasek said.

The $1-an-hour raise, in addition to the 4% raise, for the nonunion employees in Wednesday’s ordinance is designed to give them money in place of extra payments that go to certain unions for bonuses for hazardous duty, shift differential and uniform allowances, Miasek said.

City council started giving the extra $1 in 2024. The additional $1-an-hour equals $2,080 in annual additional pay.

FEDERAL LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT

Council also will consider Wednesday paying $50,000 “to satisfy the policy deductible” to Tokio Marine, the city’s insurance company, for the settlement of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by LaJena Solomon of Youngstown, according to an ordinance

Solomon filed the suit Jan. 12, 2024, accusing the city of wrongful death and racial bias, contending it treated the disappearance of her 14-year-old son in 2021 differently because he was black than it does when white children go missing.

Her son, Landon Lockhart, was called a “runaway” by Youngstown police rather than a “missing child.”

A $40,000 settlement was reached during a May 7 mediation and city council agreed at its June 4 meeting to pay $20,000 with $20,000 coming from Tokio Marine. The city’s $20,000 went toward its deductible with the insurance company.

But council is being asked Wednesday to pay an additional $50,000 to its insurance company toward the deductible and for legal fees.