YOUNGS-TOWN — The $1.2 million in American Rescue Plan funds spent by the city to turn a long-vacant grocery store into a community hub took care of only one-third of the building with no plans to spend any more money or open it.

“It was a bad idea from the beginning upon further review,” said DeMaine Kitchen, the city’s community planning and economic development department director. “It was not well thought out by the previous administration.”

Kitchen took over as CPED director Jan. 1 with the new Mayor Derrick McDowell administration. Kitchen said he discovered numerous issues with the ARP funding for plans to redevelop the former Bottom Dollar grocery store, 2649 Glenwood Ave., on the city’s South Side.

Under former Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, the city initially set aside $1.5 million in ARP funding to renovate the 18,285-square-foot building, vacant since January 2015, with the Village of Healing operating an infant mortality clinic as the main tenant. About $300,000 of that $1.5 million was redirected.

Kitchen said the Brown administration never signed a lease with the Village of Healing and the $1.2 million spent to renovate the location took care of only one-third of the structure.

That isn’t the fault of the contractor, Kitchen said, because the project was to make improvements to what was to be the location of the Village of Healing. The rest of the building wasn’t touched, he said.

“We are not going to finish the other two-thirds of the building,” Kitchen said. “No city dollars are going into that property other than maintenance, like grass cutting, that we already do. We would have to spend a few more million dollars to get the other side ready and at least six figures on the roof.”

Kitchen added: “We’re looking to unload the building. We will seek requests for proposals to see if there’s any developer or business with an interest in that building.”

The requests will be ready in about 30 days, Kitchen said.

“We’re going to throw the net out and see what we drag in,” he said. “If nothing comes in that makes sense, we’ll figure out what to do at that point.”

Kitchen added: “When you look at the money spent to only renovate one-third of the building, but no plumbing, no HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) in the rest of it, a roof that needs to be replaced, we’re not in a position to occupy it.”

While city council and the board of control set aside $1.5 million in ARP money for the project, $200,000 was redirected to International Development Group for start-up costs, planning and expansion for the Cornerstone Food Co-op, which was also supposed to go into the Bottom Dollar building. IDP had a few markets outside the location. It wasn’t known what became of that $200,000.

Also, council agreed in December 2024 to give $100,000 of that initial $1.5 million to Ohio Urban Renaissance Center at 421 North Ave. to upgrade its facilities.

The Village of Healing is looking at a site on the Glenwood Avenue corridor near the Bottom Dollar building, Kitchen said.

Messages left Thursday by The Vindicator for Brown and Nikki Fields, the former CPED director, weren’t returned.

When Brown announced the ARP-funded improvement of Bottom Dollar and that the Village of Healing would be its main tenant in September 2024, he said of the project, “My vision is that it becomes a community hub for some of the things that are missing in that neighborhood.”

Kitchen said he doesn’t know why the previous administration authorized renovations to only a small part of the former grocery store building and never had the Village of Healing sign a lease.

“It was not a good deal,” he said.

With the city having no intentions of spending any more money at the building to complete the renovations, Kitchen said it turned out to be a good thing that a lease wasn’t signed.

“We would have had to charge the Village of Healing an astronomical rate in rent that they couldn’t afford to make this work,” Kitchen said. “It would be unfair for us to put the Village of Healing in that building in the condition it’s in.”

The Village of Healing was supposed to use 6,063 square feet with the food co-op using 4,194 square feet. A third undetermined was supposed to use 5,141 square feet and there was 2,887 for a common area under the initial proposal.

Bottom Dollar went out of business and closed its three stores in Youngstown in January 2015 after the company was sold to Aldi Inc.

The city acquired the Glenwood Avenue property – the former Cleveland Elementary School and a playground – from Aldi.

ONE (Ohio North East) Health Ohio announced in April 2016 that it wanted to buy the building and turn it into a health facility as well as a food distribution site and possibly a pharmacy. The city sold the building to ONE for $150,000 in March 2018. But after a lengthy delay, ONE eventually decided not to do the project and the city refunded the $150,000 in June 2023.