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YOUNGSTOWN -- City Council will consider legislation Monday to allow the board of control to spend $120,000 to buy the former Mary Haddow Elementary School for potential economic development.
The school district closed the building, 2800 Oak St. Extension, to classroom instruction in 2008 and then used it for record storage. It's been empty for years.
The city wants to use the East Side building for senior citizen housing with the hope that will spur other housing projects to be built nearby, said DeMaine Kitchen, the city's director of community planning and economic development.
"The building is in good condition, and our vision is to repurpose it," Kitchen said. "I'd love to salvage and repurpose the building."
An appraisal of the property in May 2025 put its value at $225,000.
The city board of education declared the property as surplus in April.
The city will also obtain six other school properties from the district at no cost, Kitchen said.
The properties that are empty because the structures were demolished are at the former John White and West elementary schools.
School district properties with buildings still on them that the city will obtain at no cost are Adams School, Rutherford B. Hayes Middle/Junior High School, Princeton Junior High School and Sheridan Elementary School.
Kitchen said: "We want to acquire as much land in the city as possible so we can control what is done with it. We'll take them down and put up housing where it makes sense. These blighted structures have, frankly, been hurting the neighborhoods."
The Economic Action Group will apply for state brownfield funding for the properties, Kitchen said.
OTHER BUSINESS
Council is also being asked Monday to sign an agreement with the Ohio Department of Development for a $1.27 million grant.
The funding, approved in June by the State Controlling Board, is for 950 linear feet of new roadway from the intersection of U.S. Route 62 and Albert Street and running northeast to North Garland Avenue. The road would provide highway access to about 30 acres, including the site of the former McGuffey Plaza, on the city's East Side.
The state grant is for 75% of the project's cost. The city will seek additional funding sources to cover the other 25%, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works.
U.S. Route 62, which connects to Interstate 680 and state Route 711, now ends at Albert Street. The project would extend it so it continues onto North Garland Avenue.
The former McGuffey Plaza, a shopping center built in 1954 and later remodeled and called the McGuffey Mall, is located near McGuffey Road at North Garland Avenue.
It was built in 1954 with businesses starting to leave in the late 1990s. It was empty by 2007 and demolished in 2014. It is owned by the Western Reserve Port Authority.
Council also will consider legislation to permit the board of control to sign off on a state Residential Economic Development District (REDD) grant for up to $2.5 million to replace or install streets, sidewalks, water and sewer lines, lighting, crosswalks and trees at various locations in the city where the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. has or is building new houses.
The work has to be done by February with the street paving being done almost immediately, Shasho said.
Council also will consider Monday amending its parking ordinance to specifically ban the parking of vehicles on the front yard of a residential property.
Council had moved a proposal last month to its parking committee to amend the city's ordinances to enact the ban of parking vehicles on lawns. That initial parking ban is up for a vote to be defeated Monday.
Council's parking committee never discussed the first proposed ban.