West Federal Tech Details

I hadn't read all the details of the Incubator-related goings-on until this morning, so if you haven't read them either, here they are, courtesy the Business Journal (get a subscription, at $2.95/month, it's as cheap as they come; pay through PayPal):

The last obstacle to beginning construction of the Taft Technology Center has fallen with the U.S. Economic Development Administration signing off on its funding of $2 million toward the $4 million structure.
[...]
The CIC board ratified its property committee's recommendation, made last week, to spend up to $75,000 on engineering consulting services to develop bid proposals (also known as RFPs or Requests for Proposals) to transform the southern side of West Federal Street from South Hazel Street to Vindicator Square into a high-tech mecca.
[...]
Affected are the Armed Forces Building, the State Theatre, and the Semple and Wells buildings. The Armed Forces Building would be razed, as would all of the State except its façade. The Semple and Wells buildings would be rehabilitated.
[...]
Turning Technologies should have access to 3,000 square feet of the first floor of the Semple Building within three weeks, reported Dave Kosec, development officer for the Regional Chamber. Kosec said workmen are sanding the floor, cleaning the walls and installing fluorescent lighting so Turning can use the area as warehouse space and free up a similar area for new tenants in the Youngstown Business Incubator.
[...]
CIC finances remain healthy, Bruce Luntz, chief financial officer of the Regional Chamber reported. The chamber administers the CIC under contract. Eleven months into the CIC's fiscal 2007, the redevelopment agency shows a profit of $44,000, Luntz said, which should not fall below $40,000 by June 30. And the outlook for next year is even better because of the Taft Technology Center, he added.

Last, the CIC board agreed to allocate $4,000 so that students at the University of Michigan's urban design studio [sic]. The funds will be used to pay for their transportation here and for food and lodging while they assess what could be done with the section of the downtown from Central Square to North Hazel Street to Rayen Avenue to the DeYor Center.

They will spend three days here as part of their explorations of sections of Chicago and Ann Arbor, Mich., Hunter Morrison, executive director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at Youngstown State University.

They should offer a fresh perspective, Morrison said, and the city and the CIC are under no obligation to accept their recommendations. *

I'm very excited about these developments, as tech jobs are near to my heart. This is going to be key to downtown's revitalization and to Youngstown's future. These are jobs that can pay, raise the standard of living, and bring the creative class to live in downtown housing. And, as noted in the article, they provide funding to solve problems like that of the State Theater.


* In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Youngstown schools part of OHSTI $7.4M grant

KnowledgeWorks Foundation has announced receipt of $7.4 million for the Ohio High School Transformation Initiative (OHSTI). Youngstown is one of the nine partner school districts, and the OHSTI aims "to improve curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and student supports to help schools and students meet challenging performance goals." The grant covers three years.

One thing that caught my attention was on the KnowledgeWorks site: Career Pathways Explored: Stories from Ohio

This [ten-minute] video documents the importance of forming partnerships between education, economic, and workforce development organizations to address turning the regional economy around. The video does so by featuring employers, students, and workers in their own voices, discussing the need for Ohioans to continue to upgrade their skills and education to compete in a changing "knowledge economy."

It recommends the video to "anyone seeking to revitalize regional economies". Well, that sounds like us!

This is not an endorsement

Self-described "Renaissance man" (see the connection?) Donald K. Allen wants your vote for President of the United States. He's running as an independent, believes in term limits, completing construction of the border fences, sending the ACLU to China (or Viet Nam; their choice, I guess), siccing the 3 Stooges on the UN headquarters, replacing income tax with sales tax, and, apparently, bombing our enemies to kingdom come:

When the United States goes to war, we should give our generals free hand (short of nukes) to do whatever it takes to totally subdue the enemy and its whole populace. Remember Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki? That’s what it takes to win a war – total unconditional surrender of the entire population or face total destruction. Use the hammer.

But the best line comes next, "This sounds like I’m a hawk, but I’m not."

Why would we care about him? Well, he's a Youngstown veterinarian with an address on Market Street. The irony is that I ran across his name in "Fran Jurga's Hoofblog", whose subtitle is "Up-to-the Minute News from Hoofcare & Lameness Journal".

Lameness, indeed!

Tank

I've been thinking about how we can get things done, how we can be the most effective change agents. There has been some discussion of what kind of organization Thinkers & Drinkers can become. I'll put forth one proposal here.

Phil Kidd (I'm pleased to say I now have my T-Shirt) and I discussed some possibilities over lunch today. He mentioned the possibility of creating a periodical or paper of some kind; draw on the resources and experience of past efforts like the Walruss. He pointed out the cadre of active writers, journalists and bloggers in the group and its periphery. It's one thing to have ideas, the next step is to put them out there. The ideas need to be visible in the community. A publication of some kind would be a natural vehicle for this.

I started thinking about how ideas get disseminated on the national level. How do policy makers and lobbyists get their ideas into the hearts and minds of the public? They form think tanks and publish position papers and give speeches and raise money. These are the people who show up every night and weekend on the talk shows and tell the viewers what they should think about the issues. Could we be, then, a kind of Think Tank, just call it "Tank" for now. Maybe a bold graphic of a tank bearing down (forged from mighty steel, of course!) with a light bulb sticking out of the turret perhaps? We could publish a regular paper, and/or publish position papers and lobby news organizations to feature broadcast segments and op-eds or longer articles about them.

We talked about how to divide into groups (or committees, teams, whatever) to really investigate and attack issues, then report back to the group. We all stay up to speed on what's going on, and we have pockets of subject matter expertise to leverage in drafting and publishing proposals. In the process, we develop an activists' directory of groups that are making a difference in the city. In addition to the enjoyable brainstorming that is a part of the meetings, we need to find a path to action that both avoids duplication of effort with existing groups and leverages what strides are already being made by these groups.

The AP Effect

Since the AP covered 2010, it spread across the country. Courtesy of Google News, I've summarized the following list of places (papers or sites) where the article was syndicated. (Business Week carried the article, and they created a margin highlight.)

Kiplinger.com, News-Leader.com (MO), Washington Observer Reporter (PA), The Journal News (NY), Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (CA), MedIndia (India), nwitimes.com (IN), Beaver County Times (PA), Press-Enterprise (CA), Baltimore Sun (MD), Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier (IA), WKRN (TN), ABC News, Bay News 9 (FL), The Columbian (WA), Hartford Courant (MA), Anchorage Daily News (AK), Chandler News-Dispatch (MN), Pioneer Times-Journal (NM), Herald News Daily (ND), Jordan Falls News (IA), The Kindred Times (UT), Prescott Herald (AZ), Leading the Charge (Australia), Brocktown News (NV), Sky Valley Journal (CA), Meadow Free Press (ID), Ely Times (GA), White Rock Reviewer (SD), Olberlin (KS), Ottowa Recorder (Canada), Akron Farm Report (NE), Jackson News-Tribune (WY), San Diego Union Tribune (CA), Pierceland Herald (Canada), Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (IN), Worcester Telegram (MA), Wilmington Morning Star (NC), Carlisle Sentinel (PA), amNewYork (NY), ABCmoney.co.uk (UK), Twin Falls Times-News (ID), KTAR.com (AZ), Orlando Sentinel (FL), Central Florida News 13 (FL), Hemscott (UK), TheNewsTribune.com (WA), MLive.com (MI), Chicago Tribune (IL), Newsday (NY), Examiner.com, ForexTV.com (NY), Los Angeles Times (CA), BusinessWeek.com, Bismarck Tribune (ND), phillyBurbs.com (PA), Forbes (NY), Washington Post (DC), Miami Herald (FL), Philadelphia Daily News (PA), In-Forum (ND), Marketplace (CA), Fort Wayne News Sentinel (IN), Houston Chronicle (TX), Seattle Post Intelligencer (WA), WTOP (DC)

Another 2010 mention: AP this time

Ohio city tries shrinking back to health - Yahoo! News

By M.R. KROPKO, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 24, 1:17 PM ET

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - The panoramic view from the front steps of Loretta Bares' modest hillside home says a lot about this old, industrial city.

The houses, generally well kept, are a testament to a time when steel jobs were abundant. But two abandoned houses with broken out windows near some tall weeds reveal her Brier Hill neighborhood's sad reality — advancing urban decay and population decline, tied to jobs that were never replaced. Nearby is Youngstown's last remaining steel plant.

For decades the northeast Ohio city tried to stem the number of people moving away. Then city planners decided to take a different approach — accept being smaller and clear away clutter.

Millions of tax dollars are being spent to demolish vacant houses and buildings and open up green space — redefining the tough, blue-collar environment of the gritty city so that parks may grow, crime may drop and property values may rise, city officials hope.

The idea is that if Youngstown becomes more livable, job and population numbers may stabilize or grow. The city estimates that it has lost more than 40,000 manufacturing jobs. The population is about 82,000, about half of what it was some 40 years ago.

Youngstown stands out among the nation's shrinking blue-collar cities in its newfound acceptance that it's going to be smaller than it once was, said Joe Schilling, an urban researcher and professor at Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute in Alexandria, Va.

"American culture is one of largess, so it's hard for any mayor to have to run for office and then say to the voters, 'I think we have to shrink our city.' It sounds like retreat," he said.

Cities usually try to quickly recover the loss of people and jobs, said Jennifer Vey, a senior research associate at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

"I don't know that there are many other cities in the country taking such an aggressive approach to managing population shrinkage," she said.

A similar city, Flint, Mich., has gotten attention for aggressively managing vacancy and abandonment problems by trying to make tax delinquent properties available for redevelopment, Vey said.

More than 6,000 residential, commercial and industrial properties have been obtained in Flint and surrounding areas since the Genesee County Land Bank started the program in 2002. About 2,000 parcels are being or have been redeveloped, and some land is preserved for green space, said Dan Kildee, land bank chairman.

Youngstown spent $1.2 million for demolition last year and may spend about $1.5 million this year on razing mainly single-family houses. The city took down about 400 housing units last year and may exceed that number this year. The plan took effect in 2005.

Hunter Morrison, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at Youngstown State University, who helped craft the plan, calls the move a big psychological shift.

"When I got here five years ago everybody just talked about how their fathers made steel," he said. "Now they're talking about looking forward."

Some other cities and urban planners have taken note.

One is Saginaw, Mich., which, along with surrounding communities, has lost about 4,900 auto and other manufacturing jobs from 1994 to 2004, said Greg LaMarr, spokesman for the community group Saginaw Future. The area has seen a shift to service sector jobs.

A delegation from the city may soon visit Youngstown, said John Stemple, Saginaw's zoning and development coordinator.

"Being smaller isn't all that bad, if you create a quality environment," he said.

But getting smaller is a tough challenge.

"If Youngstown is not going to be the city that it was, some parts of the city have to be let go. It's a difficult exercise to go through," said Terry Schwarz, an administrator at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, a Kent State University planning institute that has closely studied Youngstown.

Planned downsizing requires a lot of patience, said Wendy Kellogg, professor urban planning at the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

Shrinking can make a city like Youngstown a better place, Kellogg said.

"In the meantime, until you reconfigure things, you're sort of in limbo," she said.

Frank Popper, a member of Princeton's faculty and a visiting professor at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, is unsure of the likelihood of success, because the city's plan needs more time to show results.

"Shrinkage for a place like Youngstown seems reasonable at least in principle," he said.

Youngstown's plan makes sense to Loretta Bares, 34, who grew up in the house where she still lives and bemoans her joblessness.

"You get rats down here because of these empty houses," she said. "People are leaving."

A few miles away, Bill Mayes takes his 5-year-old daughter, Imani, for an outing. As she roller-skates gleefully at his side, Mayes, 39, who works at a plastics company, wonders what city planners are thinking.

"It doesn't make sense," he said. "Why tear down when you can try to rebuild what you've got?"

While the city has plenty of older neighborhoods and blight, there are still homes in various price ranges that give the appearance of a thriving town. New townhouses are rising near the Youngstown State campus, and new buildings mix with old ones downtown.

Jay Williams, the city's personable, 35-year-old mayor who grew up in Youngstown, said it took a long time for city planners to understand that no longer having several big steel plants along the Mahoning River isn't all that bad.

"This community has been looking in the rearview mirror, still mourning the loss of the industry that sort of defined who we were," he said.

Steel mills were the city's lifeblood, part of a flourishing U.S. steel industry after World War II. Youngstown's population swelled to 170,000 in the 1950s. Then, in 1977, steel plants started to close, eliminating thousands of jobs.

The city kept chasing "the next big idea" that somehow might reverse the decline, Williams said. Such ideas — one was a blimp factory — haven't worked out.

The city's economy now is based more on government, public schools, Youngstown State and its two hospitals. Crime continues to be a nasty issue, Williams said, although the number of homicides dropped to 32 last year from more than 60 a few years ago.

Youngstown is wrestling with what to do with the new empty spaces. There has been talk of expanding parks, giving more space to an old cemetery and even agriculture.

But what it most has in mind is to bring the supply and demand of housing back into balance. Less people living in Youngstown has made that possible, Williams said.

"We're not kicking anyone out," he said.

Governing.com Nov Photo Essay

This may be old news to some, but I hadn't come across it before, so I thought I'd give it a bump. Governing.com had a feature in November about Youngstown's Smart Decline which included a nice photo essay by Christopher Swope. Also includes Q&As with Mayor Williams and Hunter Morrison, director of YSU's Center for Urban and Regional Studies.

Whether cleaning up in Streetscape, brainstorming at Thinkers & Drinkers or putting in time with the urban agenda groups of the Greater Ohio/Brookings Restoring Prosperity initiative, I never tire of going back to read about the goals behind our efforts. It refreshes my sense of possibility and purpose.

Jim Converse says, "We are the people we've been waiting for." Don't wait to be called on! Seek out the projects that interest you, and find out how to get involved. My wife and I are especially interested in the city schools and the Mahoning River. I contacted Jim this week to get involved with Greater Ohio. I'm curious if there is already a city-wide listing of the various groups with which people can get involved. I think this would be useful, and I plan to add their names to the still nascent Google Map of Youngstown. For example, the Mahoning River Consortium, Wick Neighbors, and North Side Citizens Coalition. I'm sure there are others dedicated to downtown or keeping the highways clean or any number of other foci.

New Investment

It's not necessarily new industry, but new investment is just as promising...

STAG Capital Partners Announces Ohio and Kentucky Acquisitions: "Issue Date: 6/18/2007, Posted On: 6/20/2007

STAG Capital Partners Announces Ohio and Kentucky Acquisitions

BOSTON-- STAG Capital Partners, a real estate firm that pro-actively acquires and manages net-leased properties throughout the United States, announced it has acquired 256,026 SF of warehouse and manufacturing space in Youngstown, Ohio, and Bardstown, Kentucky.

The acquisitions are part of a 15-year sale-leaseback transaction with Polyair Corp., a manufacturer and distributor of protective packaging products in the United States and Canada.

The property in Youngstown, Ohio, consists of 153,708 square feet located on 20.4 acres of land at 1100 Performance Place in the Performance Industrial Park.

The property in Bardstown, Kentucky, is 102,318 square feet located on 10 acres of land at 300 Spencer Mattingly Lane.

Both facilities are fully occupied by Polyair Corp., a division of Polyair Inter Pack, Inc (Toronto: PPK). Polyair was represented by Fred Herrera of CB Richard Ellis."

Letter to the Editor

In Phil Kidd's blog this week, he shares a recent letter to the editor "Y'town isn't my town" and his response. Inspired, I couldn't sleep last night until jotting this down, which I mailed in this morning:

Youngstown IS the Valley

In response to Boardman resident Merle Lee's letter "Y'town isn't my town", which proposes a boycott of Youngstown to protest its exploration of income tax generation from a Joint Economic Development District. There is a fair debate to be had about the proposal. It should be noted, however, that Youngstown is the reason for the suburbs' existence, and the revitalization of Youngstown is essential to the future of the region as a whole.

Youngstown has only been recently rescued from the claws of corruption and deserves a chance to find its way forward using all of the resources at its disposal. My family and I moved back to the city this year after a decade in the suburbs because of the vitality of its communities and culture. We believe in the growing renaissance that is leveraging the legacy of Youngstown's neighborhoods to realize a new urban identity.

To further this transformation, the region must move beyond urban-suburban conflict towards cooperative cohabitation, where each city promotes the other's health for mutual benefit. By supporting the development of Youngstown, the surrounding communities stand to gain higher quality of life through increased employment opportunities, higher wages, richer real estate values, expanded arts offerings and an elevated regional profile and attendant tourism dollars.

We owe it to ourselves and each other to engage in meaningful debates on these issues and policies. Ad hominem attacks only serve to isolate and insult. There's much rebuilding to be done. And we can only do it together.


Tyler S. Clark

Doing Local Right

As a software consultant, I follow several technical blogs. One recent post talks about a topic relevant here: providing local information effectively and comprehensively. One example of how it's done well is lawrence.com

• A comprehensive events calendar (with editorially selected "best bets")


• Blogs by local residents


• Movie listings for local cinemas (with links to the reviews by both newspaper staff and members of the public)



• Detailed event coverage, including additional dates, weather forecasts for outdoor events in the next few days and an SMS/e-mail reminder service


• Gig listings that incorporate MP3 downloads (“if you go, you might hear”) from the 1,000+ MP3s of local bands hosted by the site


• Drink specials, which also appear on relevant event and venue pages


• The local band and music database, browseable by band, musician, genre and more



• The local restaurant listings, including kitchen hours (and hence the infamous restaurants open right now)


• The downloads page, which combines data from all over the site to present MP3s for download that are by bands which are playing gigs in the next week (“see ’em live at the Bottleneck”)

The first question is: what do we already have that approaches this need. The Metro Monthly has a comprehensive calendar of local events, but it's not particularly friendly in terms of filtering or sorting or searching. The Vindicator site has a dining directory and movie listings, but I don't see local events listed online.

A comprehensive local site, perhaps teamed up with either of those existing resources or some other I'm not aware of, would be a boon. We'll know we're really making progress when we have these resources coupled with neighborhood-centric audio walking tours available for download. Now that would be cool!

Downtown: The Vision

In a recent gathering of local activists, bloggers and concerned citizens, we discussed ideas that could be applied to preserve and enhance the Downtown. One of the action items that came out of it was for the group to create a compelling vision for what Downtown could and should be. We won't make headway with "don't tear this down" and "don't build that parking lot". We have to be able to say, convincingly, here is a Downtown that will be attractive, functional, vital and historic.

To that end, I am proposing we create that vision using an online interactive map. I've started one here that, unfortunately, cannot be collaboratively edited. Post a list of stuff you want to see added, and I will add it. Preferably, you would also include a link to a picture and a Web site that can go along with the name and contact info for the business or site. Go ahead and put it in the commments, and I'll tackle each as I can. So far, this is the best tool I've found to handle this goal.

Here are the types of things I anticipate us wanting to feature:
* Projects: We talked about lighting up bridges and buildings to make Downtown more compelling. Photoshop an image that represents how that would look, at let's attach it to the bridge/building.

* Preservation: Want to highlight the planted median strips on W Federal? Take a picture of it, and let's post it on that street to say "This is good; let's keep it!" Take a picture of the State Theater facade and we'll post that: "Let's preserve this!"

* Directory: We can simultaneously create an index of Downtown hotspots that people should know about and frequent. Favorite pizza shop or rib place? Let's highlight it.

PLEASE NOTE: All pictures must already be hosted somewhere online. Please send me the URL to where the picture is hosted (as opposed to sending me the picture itself).

If these walls could talk

I spent some time this week doing research into previous owners of our house at 1860 5th Avenue on the north side, part of the Crandall Park-Fifth Avenue Historic District. The research involved simply reading through the city directories from the '20s through the '80s. The Maag Library at YSU has them in print going back at least through the '20s, perhaps further. The public library on Wick next to St. John's has them in print after 1950 and earlier ones on microfilm.

The city directories list residents both by address and by last name, so I looked up the listing for our address, then cross referenced the names to find their occupation and children, if any. The dates below are approximate, based on when the corresponding listings appeared in the directory. Each is probably accurate within 2 years.

For example, our address first appears in the 1929 directory, though most of those I've spoken with, including the previous owners, believe it was built in 1927. Here is the owners list:

1927: Alfred O. & Mary K. Stuart. Alfred was chief clerk at First National Bank on 10 West Federal. The bank was the "oldest national bank in Ohio" and the third oldest in the U.S. (Not sure what qualified it as a "national" bank and what the difference is between that and anything else.) Their previous residence was 221 W Madison, and they later moved to 143 Park Avenue, at least by...

1933: Henry A. and May E. Roemer. Henry (1884 - 1969) was the president of Sharon Steel and led it ably out of the Depression and through mergers and acquisitions to become a force in the region. Presumably, he moved closer to Sharon after a few years, as by 1937 the house was listed under a new owner.

1937: William N. and Marie B. McDonald. William was comptroller for Youngstown Sheet & Tube. He was the second-longest resident of the house and redesigned the kitchen during his tenure. The original design sketch still exists and was left for us by the previous owner. McDonald died around 1955, and the city directory lists the house under his widow's name in the 1957 edition.

1959: Frank and Anna Micchia and their four children: Frank Jr, Joanne, Joseph M and Ronald. Frank apparently owned an Italian Restaurant and moved to Fifth Ave from just around the corner, at 1896 Cordova. I hope to find out more about the family's history. I know he retired in 1977. The house is listed as vacant from 1979 through 1983.

1983: Nicholas and Raelyn J Tsarnas. Formerly of 5636 Stanford Avenue, and a structural steel painter by profession, Nicholas lived in the house for maybe two years before selling it in...

1985: C. Alan and Dr. Sandra W. Stephan. Alan was a retired captain in the US Navy and Sandy was the chair of the English department at YSU. After Alan died late in 2006, we bought the house from Sandy, who was terrifically helpful and generous in the sale. Sandy and Alan were the longest inhabitants of the house, at a total of 22 years. (The McDonalds were resident for slightly fewer years.) By all accounts, they were conscientious neighbors and valued community members.

2007: We're looking forward to a long tenure here and hope to increase the home's value by contributing to the city's overdue renaissance.