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YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County commissioners, the Western Reserve Port Authority and the Youngstown City School District are expected to talk later this month about potentially relocating the county board of elections to the former Williamson School.
Board Director Tom McCabe said Tuesday: "The commissioners and the port authority are working on it. There is movement."
Board Vice Chairwoman Sandra Barger said: "We think everyone will be happy when it's all said and done -- like literally everyone."
McCabe said the meeting among the commissioners, the WRPA and the school district will occur later this month.
The city school district closed Williamson a few years ago.
Barger said of the location: "It's in really good shape. All of the board members have toured it."
The WRPA is looking to develop the former school on the city's South Side into a facility for other county offices, in addition to the board of elections, McCabe said.
The former school property needs more parking to accommodate the board of elections, but that shouldn't be challenging, McCabe said.
The board's current location is at the Oakhill Renaissance Place, a former hospital on the city's South Side where it has been for about 20 years. The board has talked of moving for about two years because of the conditions at Oakhill.
The board had a company do asbestos testing Tuesday at Oakhill and had the water and air tested for issues. The results could be ready by the board's next meeting, Oct. 6.
The Oakhill location on Oak Hill Avenue is about 24,000-square-feet, which is what the board of elections would occupy at the former school, McCabe said.
After saying for more than three months that the former Bottom Dollar grocery store was the top choice for its new home, elections officials said July 31 that they no longer see it that way and are considering another building.
That building is the former Williamson School on Williamson Avenue.
Elections board officials toured the Bottom Dollar location on April 9 with Director David Betras declaring it was the ideal location to relocate its office. Elections board officials wanted the city to either give the building away for nothing or sell it for $1 to the WRPA and then have the WRPA lease the structure to them for 20 years.
But neither officials from the board of elections or the WRPA sat down with the city for formal negotiations.
The elections board voted 4-0 on July 7 to move ahead with relocating its warehouse from Oakhill to the former Bottom Dollar location. The plan would have also moved the early-voting center from Oakhill to Bottom Dollar next year with other board staff going to a county administration building that will be erected downtown at the former Eastern Gateway Community College building and garage.
Only a few weeks after the board's vote, it moved on from Bottom Dollar on Glenwood Avenue on the city's South Side with officials saying they were considering another building in the city for its offices. That turns out to be Williamson.
Meanwhile, the city received a $350,000 offer from Potential Development, a pre-K through grade 12 school system for students with autism, to buy the long-empty former Bottom Dollar grocery store with a planned $1,066,067 investment to make it a K-3 school.
City council's community planning and economic development committee will discuss the offer at its Sept. 14 meeting and if the committee authorizes it, it will be up for a full council vote two days later.