Salvation Army Building to be Demolished

[john perkins]

Excuse me,

I see some think that it is simply a matter of corporations and other private business purchasing parts of youngstown to remodel. Fact is we are an attractive median for those looking to be central based and cost effective. Corporations see the benefit of moving to youngstown. What they also see is red tape. There have been many big business reps down here trying to purchase buildings and have either been stopped by the cic or other unknown sources. Take for example the Youngstown Business Incubator. A success story among refurbished youngstown buildings. now looking to expand the YBI has purchased the building adjecent to it's structure. They have acquired the appropriate funds for demolition and rebuild. Yet they are denied a building permit. This type of old youngstown mafia BS is totally backwards to progress.

Take 2010.... what have they done? nothing i can see. I am downtown everyday.

Now take Yaeda. They have been involved with multiple renovations and have spured 8-10 new businesses in downtown. They also host free events and meetings to bring together other downtown businessmen.

You say the salvation army building is an eye sore. I say to hell with that. the eye sore is that our nicest buildings are either  the jail!!!!!or serve no real purpose in drawing people here. Just big government.

Some of you folks that speak of eye soars have obviously never had to use the salvation army growing up. Or for that matter have any real ties to youngstown and it's progress.

To make your eyes less sore why don't we do what we did with the child support building? <sarcasm> yea let's tear down 1 bulding lots of money.... build a parking lot 1.5 million and then when that's done tear up the parking lot (lots of money) and build a worthless building...(lots of money)

The control over youngstown is not given to youngstowners. This is why i have faith in jay. Let's just hope he isn't as halfable as i think.

Welcome to The Yo

John Perkins

[AllanY2525]

Somone on one of these local message boards made an interesting observation concerning
the demolition of buildings in Youngstown that are either old, derelict/unsafe, or just vacant
with no one stepping up to buy and use them.

Youngstown used to have about 180,000 people living within the city limits at her peak.
Now she has about 80,000 people.  This means that there are WAYYYY more homes and
buildings in the city than what it can now support and maintain.

The Youngstown 2010 Plan does NOT want to turn the entire city into "One big green
space".  What it DOES aim to do is to thin out unneeded buildings and housing stock
to the point where the physical size of the city's infrastructure more closely MATCHES
the actual current-day population.  This is a MUST for the city, as it simply cannot afford
to continue to maintain all of these buildings - the city doesn't have the money.

I have a love for historic homes and buildings (hence, the creation of my web site
dedicated solely to Youngstown Historic Homes and Buildings) but there has to be
a balance between saving what is saveable AND "sustainable", and getting rid of
what the city simply cannot sustain/support.

If the private sector (in the form of individual investors) wants to buy some of these
vacant structures and bring them "back to life" (like I am doing with my apartment
building on the North Side) then that's a good thing, too.

[allison]

And now the Ytown 2010 plan is Jay's plan?

Too bad that you are unable to see the forest through the trees.  Other "rising cities" restore existing buildings. They're not demolishing structurally sound buildings to make way for more parking lots.  They're making room for more residents, not driving them away, on bike paths nonetheless!

Makes one wonder if someone's hand has been in the cookie jar too long!

[ytowner]

I beleive you have nothing objective to prove that "many beleived it could have potential." The people I talked to about it all thought it was a huge eyesore and needs to be torn down.

[jay]

I know of at least two individuals who wanted to purchase the Salvation Army building before it was vandalized.   Many people feel the building has the potential to be developed into a useful structure again.

[ytowner]

Folks, this city has lived with useless, old, and abandoned buildings for years and let me ask you this?
How good has that done for this city?

IT HASN'T.

WRTA wanted the land and they were willing to pay to demolish it, you can't complain. The public uses WRTA and the general public will like to see this building gone.

Why do all of you have the attitude: WAIT AND SEE.
We have done that for decades and now when we want to make this city nice we have to criticize it.

Back to JAY... You know he is doing his job, and the bike path is fully YTOWN 2010, now Jay's plan, the cities plan.

[Mary Krupa]

There was a lovely path along the Mahoning next to the B & O but it has been neglected. This was a nice site and it wasn't used. Were people afraid to use it? I wonder where Jay Williams is thinking these paths would go and would people actually use them? Is there any place to put in a path in Youngstown and people would use it or would they be afraid?  Everybody seems to operate out of fear in this community, what a bunch of wimps.

The attitude of "tear it down" is also so very typical and very tiring. Educate yourselves about what other cities have done, including Cleveland, Akron, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Denver, Louisville, etc., with their old buildings. They have learned to appreciate them and to redevelop them and beautify their cities with them.

We are soooooooooooooooooooooooooo unenlightened here.

[Allison]

According to the March 2006 Business Journal, architect Ronald Cornell Farino believed the structure to be sound and worth renovating.

Instead of assisting our senior citizens, Mayor Williams wants bike and walking trails and WRTA wants to make money from a day care center.
Spend millions on that and forget about repaying the people who supported this city all of their lives.  It would cost less to refurbish the building anyway. 

Maybe Youngstown should be annexed with anyone who would want it and they could turn it into one big greenspace as visioned in Youngstown 2010.

[jay]

The windows of the Salvation Army Building started to be stolen about two years ago.  To see earlier photos and to learn about the lack of progress in attempting to prevent the vandalism, view this older message thread.
ytownpc.com/forum2/index.php?topic=134.0
The building only started to 'look bad' when this vandalism to the windows started to take place.

[jay]

A story about the Salvation Army Building  is on the front page of the March 2006 Business Journal (hard copy version).  The article states that the WRTA bid $17,500 for the building and it was accepted.  The article also states that the "..WRTA has about $300,000 in Federal Transit Administration funds set aside to help pay for the demolition."  The bus authority is also seeking additional funds to help with the project.

The local Salvation Army had recently been considering the installation of apartments in the Mahoning Avenue building.   The story contains a very interesting statement by an architect who toured the building.  The article states,  "After careful scrutiny,  the architect said he believed the structure was still sound and worth renovating, despite years of vandalism and exposure to the elements."  The local Salvation Army eventually decided not to move forward with their plans.

Thank you, yfdgricker, for letting us know that the building was not used for live burns.

[yfdgricker]

Just a clarification, yes the building was used for fire practice but not for what are called 'live burns'.

No fires were set inside the building for training purposes.

The training mostly consisted of three areas. First was ladder placement on the outside of the building. Second was high rise hose placement which involved laying large amounts of hose through the interior stairwells. Lastly was forcible entry, which was probably the most damaging thing done to the building, where the fire companies practiced forcing some of the steel doors throughout the structure. The companies training did spray a little water on the upper floors but the only damage it would have done was taking off some of the peeling paint on the walls and ceiling.

Just wanted to share that info.

[ytowner]

Jay the people I have told about this being demolished are very happy. Its a major eyesore and is USELESS. Why waste millions in renovating it and making it structurally sound when its been used in fire practices... It was never apart of the 2010 Plan anyway.. ....

[AllanY2525]

$300,000.00 seems kind of "steep" just to demolish this building.  As
public buildings do, the old Salvation Army building is not all that big.

Perhaps instead of using a wrecking ball, etc they could use strategically
placed explosive charges and "implode" this building when they demolish
it.  It would bring the structure down in SECONDS, and most if it would
wind up in the basement and could be backfilled with a couple bulldozers.

[jay]

The building was in use five years ago and had a value of about .25 million.  The institution who owned it did not protect it.  The city police department did not protect it from vandalism.  City departments did not see to it that the building was boarded up and secured.  No one went to bat for this building.

Due to this failure, about $300,000 in public funds will have to be expended to demolish the structure.  The private sector failed and the taxpayers have to foot the bill.

[ytowner]

Jay!

The building is CRAP. It's useless. We need to tear it down because its the biggest eyesore next to the U-HAUL on I-680.

Thanks and KUDOS to Jay Williams and the team for tearing this piece of crap down!!!!

jay.. You do know its been used for 2 years for fire training?