CCA Fights Urban Blight as Arena Is Set to Open

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From the Business Journal on 10/20/2005

CCA Fights Urban Blight as Arena Is Set to Open
By Cynthia Vinarsky

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Lot by lot, building by building, Community Corrections Agency is making a dent in the blight that once overwhelmed the segments of Market Street that lead into downtown Youngstown.


And now that the Youngstown Convocation Center is nearly complete, with inaugural concerts scheduled the weekend of Oct. 29 and 30, CCA is stepping up the pace on its neighborhood improvement effort.

"Perception is everything," says Richard Billak, CCA's chief executive and a member of the board of Youngstown's Cityscape.

"We're trying to prepare the corridors to downtown for people who haven't been here for years. I'm talking about people who haven't come down since Santa Claus was at Strouss," he jokes, referring to a department store the May Co. once operated downtown.

The city is working to eliminate eyesores on South Avenue; the CCA has adopted Market Street. "We're putting out the challenge to folks along the other major corridors to join us," Billak says.

Scrambling to get as much done as possible on Market before the convocation center opens, CCA participated in the demolition of three rundown buildings in the last six weeks.

The city paid crews to raze a large, brick structure at the corner of Market and Woodland that had been vacant 20 years; CCA paid the city $25,000 to help offset its cost.

Also razed was a smaller building at 700 Market, a structure adjacent to the northbound exit of Interstate 680 and the former Purple Heart bar at 1603 Market. Ironically, Billak recalls, the Purple Heart building housed CCA's offices when the agency opened in 1974.

Plans are to have the three lots cleaned up, graded and landscaped in time for the opening of the convocation center. CCA clients will maintain the sites by trimming grass and shrubs, edging, adding mulch and removing weeds, he says.

The non-profit agency, a halfway house, serves male and female convicts released from state and federal prisons and provides alternative programs for some non-violent offenders sentenced locally.

Landscaping duties help CCA clients fulfill their community service requirements and provide some with new job skills. Billak says.

CCA's beautification campaign began in 1997 at its own headquarters at 1507 Market St. Officials reasoned that cleaning up and landscaping the grounds would make them safer for CCA clients and employees as it improved the agency's image.

Since then CCA has spent $220,000 in its war on eyesores; its clients have cleared lots of litter, razed ramshackle buildings, and created pockets of beauty along Market Street.

In addition to its headquarters, Billak says, CCA has operations in four other buildings on Market, has cleared, landscaped and maintained 12 lots and painted 15 other buildings on the street.

"Hopefully, in the near future, we'll be seeing new construction instead of demolition," Billak says. "Our hope is that other businesses would join us, and we do feel like it's changing. You can feel the energy."

The CCA's chief fiscal officer, Rose Moderalli, points to exterior improvements recently completed at Zabel Restaurant Equipment, 645 Market St., as evidence that other businesses on the street are getting involved in the beautification effort.

Moderalli has heard of other projects in the works as well. "I think the pace is accelerating," she says.

CCA's board of directors appropriates funds each year to help pay for the agency's blight fight.

The agency also sponsors an annual fund-raiser that, in part, benefits the ongoing neighborhood improvement project. Television sitcom star Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond was this year's featured performer.

The Market Street renovations have given the agency a huge public relations boost, Billak says. Projects are always marked with his agency's green-and-white signs, and he hears positive comments about the project wherever he goes. "Before we started this, nobody knew we existed," he says. Today the agency's work is very much in evidence.