YOUNGSTOWN — City council is being asked to spend $1.95 million for sanitary sewer improvements for a potential business at an industrial park though the request may be rebuffed.

Legislation sponsored by Mayor Derrick McDowell requests council at its Wednesday meeting allow the board of control, of which he is chairman, to advertise for bids and enter into a contract for the project.

But some members of council said they know nothing about the project and aren’t ready to move ahead with the legislation.

Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, said, “I don’t know anything about it because the administration didn’t tell us anything. I don’t know what it is. They haven’t briefed us. I’m not committing to anything moving forward.”

Councilwoman Cynthia McWilson, D-6th Ward, said: “I do not know anything about it. We shouldn’t be in this situation. We got the (legislative) package, but as far as any information on this, I don’t have any.”

Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th Ward, who represents the business park, said: “From the previous administration, I heard about the project, but I don’t have specifics.”

Ray said DeMaine Kitchen, the city’s community planning and economic development department director, is supposed to call him about the project. Ray hadn’t heard from Kitchen as of Thursday evening.

Asked if he would support the legislation at Wednesday’s meeting, Ray said, “I have to see what information I get prior to the meeting on the project. I would hope if we’re proposing to spend that kind of money that we have something viable there. As for the project, I need more information.”

Kitchen and Jonathan Huff, the mayor’s chief of staff, deferred comment on the project to Andy Resnick, the city’s spokesman.

Resnick said: “This is part of our larger strategic approach to get as many potential development sites prepared and shovel-ready as possible.”

The proposed ordinance is for a project on Exal Court in the city’s Salt Springs Road Business Park.

City council approved legislation Jan. 7 to permit the Western Reserve Port Authority to seek buyers for a number of city-owned properties, including two on Exal Court. It isn’t clear if this project is one of those two city-owned parcels on Exal Court.

Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said a business is interested in constructing a building on Exal Court behind the former Exterran Energy Solutions Inc. site, which has been the home of Youngstown Tool & Die for nearly six years.

Shasho didn’t know the company looking to build at the Exal Court site, but said construction could be done quickly and finished this summer.

“We put a sanitary sewer in and ran it to the closest location we could,” he said. “Now we need a pump station to connect to it. We didn’t want to get into it until we had an end user. There’s still potential development for more companies.”

Exterran, which made equipment for the gas and oil industry, opened a $13.2 million facility in April 2013 at 2572 Salt Springs Road.

However, struggles with the industry led the company to go out of business in March 2016, laying off 68 workers.

In July 2020, Youngstown Tool & Die, which makes custom designed aluminum extrusion dies, relocated to that building. Before the relocation from a location on Poland Avenue, Tool & Die had considered building a 60,000-square-foot facility behind the Exterran location.