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New Mixed Use Lifestyle Center Proposed: Some big news out of Wheeling recently... a developer is pushing to develop the hillside behind the historic Woodsdale neighborhood into a mixed use lifestyle center of sorts. As far as lifestyle centers go, this one actually doesn't have a bad design. However as expected, the NIMBYs are going into cardiac arrest over this proposal so it probably won't happen. I also fail to see how there's any market left for new retail in the Ohio Valley; Wheeling already has the Highlands, Ohio Valley Mall, and Downtown. I think they should scale back their retail plans for this but I suppose I shouldn't complain. But anyhow, here's a video showing the plans, site, and renderings (they also have a petition of support on their website if you want to sign it). https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=-JZ2WqLekns

Beautiful photos! It's a shame the state some of these houses are in; however those abandoned homes make for good photos! I love those two rowhouses on Price Hill. I really need to get down to Cincinnati and properly explore it one day!

I'm glad to see more student housing at YSU! I heard in terms of actual residence halls/dorms though they are vastly under-supplied (these new developments are all off campus apartments I believe). I think this is crucial to YSU becoming an actual college however and I think if they play they're cards right that they will be on par with the other state universities a decade or two from now. The campus isnt bad and the location is pretty good. They just need to work on attracting non-commuters from outside the Youngstown area or else it will forever be held back by the commuter school stigma it has now.

I think I saw from someone in the neighborhood that something like only 3/12 of the original houses on that street remain. The good news is that there's some renovations going on in the neighborhood and there's a solid business district on Elm Street now

Indian Village Historic District May 2019 Indian Village is a tiny historic district in Youngstown's South Side between Glenwood Avenue an Mill Creek Park. The small neighborhood has managed to remain stable and well maintained despite being located adjacent to some of the city's worst areas. Unfortunately I didn't photograph the whole neighborhood, just the houses on Kiawatha Drive along the bike trail in Mill Creek Park. In my opinion it's one of the city's greatest hidden gems. And here's a bonus pic of a house on Canfield Avenue in the Idora neighborhood:

Here's some pics I took in German Village back in May: I have other pics of buildings from around Columbus and Ohio posted on my Buildings of America Instagram page.

New Pool Hall/Restaurant Downtown: Source: WKBN Another new business is coming Downtown. The owners of Liquid Blu nightclub are opening this on the second floor of their building in Downtown. They want to branch out of the nightclub scene and hope to make this a laid back place for people to go to after work for happy hour and shoot some pool. The menu seems to be typical bar food but they will be serving pastelillos! I guess that's a result of the growing Puerto Rican influence in Youngstown! The pool hall will open on the first of November. I wish them success; we need more entertainment based businesses Downtown and though this is still a bar, it is moving in that direction a bit.

Big news indeed! What happens in the Sharon/New Castle area is pretty intertwined with the Youngstown area, so it's definitely a good sign for Youngstown and the whole area!

We've got some renderings of the streets that are being rebuilt soon in Downtown Youngstown: Commerce Street: I'm a little disappointed that Commerce Street won't have bike lanes but oh well. It is still a major improvement. Federal Street: I wasn't sure what their plans were for Federal Street but I'm excited to see this! Basically it looks like they will be extending the median in the center of the road all the way to the intersections, adding green space, and replacing the diagonal parking with parallel parking. I'm not sure Federal necessarily needed this improvement as much as others streets, but it sure will make it look great and will hopefully help the businesses on it! I wonder if they are going to do something like this on East Federal as well. Rayen Street: Finally, bike lanes! Youngstown as a whole has a grand total of zero bike lanes so I hope they at least stick to the few they have planned for the future (Rayen, Fifth, and Front). I'm glad they're rebuilding Rayen because it will help bridge the gap between YSU and Downtown. Rayen is currently four lanes with people speeding through it like a superhighway. It's always an adventure to cross it... But if Rayen is improved, it will make going between YSU and Downtown much less stressful. Front Street: Front Street will be the first street they work on (after Fifth). As we know it goes in front of the amphitheater, so hopefully this could help support that and maybe bring in more development (I'd love to see mixed use/apartment development in the many parking lots there even though that's a big thing to ask for!). But this street will be reduced from five lanes to three lanes with protected two-way bike lanes.

Awesome! I've never seen this photo before. In fact I feel like there's a lack of old color photos like this from Downtown during the 70s. It's cool to see how vibrant it looked even though Downtown was technically already declining by that time.

I can't believe I never saw this reply until now! Thanks for sharing that information! It's a shame to see the state the neighborhood is in but I suppose it's finally starting to take a turn for the better; however I bet we will still see a lot of demolitions unfortunately. However it is good to see the boom of business on Elm Street; it was certainly unexpected to me but having a coffee shop and restaurants in the neighborhood really helps. I think Wick Park has a great future as a neighborhood for YSU students and young adults; I know the whole issue of student rentals is controversial and not ideal in comparison to owner occupied properties, but at least the buildings are being kept alive as rentals. If the city and neighborhood plays its cards right, I could even foresee it becoming a mini version of Akron's Highland Square or something. It's already walkable, close enough to Downtown, next to YSU, has a huge park, and lots of new businesses. I really wish I could restore the apartment buildings on Bryson Street and Broadway! They are absolutely beautiful and I have a soft spot for old apartment buildings like that. And I do know about the Bonesetter Reese house, my high school photography teacher taught me a lot of history about random Youngstown history including the story of that house! Also, I wrote an article about the current state of Parkway Towers and I may do one about the various houses in the neighborhood.

Not sure, never tried it but have heard good things. Also, I forgot to mention V2 Trattatoria which is sort of similar to "fancier" restaurants like Bistro 1907.

That's a great point actually. Downtown Youngstown has a lot of "hip" places (including the new ones that will be opening) but not a lot of traditional restaurants or "fancy" places except Bistro 1907. Plus there's really a lack of anything at all around the Covelli Center and amphitheater which means a lot of visitors will probably just eat somewhere other than Downtown anyways.

Middlebury Commons turned out to look quite nice in my opinion! I'm glad to see some development in Middlebury. Additionally, I'd like to see some more stuff happen nearby in the East End area. I think there's a lot of potential there.

DeBartolo Commons (Southern Park Mall Event Space): The DeBartolo Corporation has released more renderings for its redvelopment of the Sears space at Southern Park mall in Boardman. Today the Sears space demolition took place. The plan is to replace it with a four acre green space called "DeBartolo Commons" which will be used for sports and other events. Frankly I think this plan is pretty stupid for one reason; it's surrounded on all sides by parking lots. I commend their plan to also add storefronts facing the green space but what I don't understand is the need to place a small parking lot between the mall and the field. It just makes the new event space disconnected from the mall and adds traffic to all four sides of the event space. I get that this is typical suburban development nonsense, but how did no one think of the benefit of just extending the green space up to the entrance of the mall and just placing a small service road instead of a parking lot? Anyways the development should be done by Fall 2020.

Woah I didn't mean to start a controversy ? Anyways my point was that Downtown Youngstown just feels more vibrant and has more of its historical buildings/setup in tact than Akron does. Akron feels like a bit of a mismatch of midcentury buildings with only a couple historic ones left, many of which are in bad shape; though luckily that will be changing soon with projects such as the Bowery development. It's a bit strange how Downtown Akron is pretty vibrant south of Canal Park and north around Market Street but it's pretty dead in between. Youngstown on the other hand is just much more compact which I like. Sure Akron has a slightly larger amount of businesses in their Downtown but the general set up just isn't as nice in my opinion. It could just be the construction but Downtown Akron just feels like it has a long ways to go. In defense of Akron: Highland Square and Wallhaven alone put the entire city of Youngstown to shame; there's no parts of Youngstown even remotely as successful as those two neighborhoods alone. Outside of Downtown Youngstown there's no real thriving walkable neighborhoods (hell there's only a couple that can even be called healthy at all let alone thriving). Plus Akron has bikelanes, Youngstown has a grand total of zero bike lanes. There's also good things happening elsewhere in the city like Kenmore and East End. However I just think Downtown Akron is lagging behind other comparable cities and hasn't seen the investment it should have. Sure, the North Side Market area is great but I don't really consider that part of Downtown proper since it's disconnected by a highway; but again that's yet another nice development Youngstown does not have. In other words, I like Akron and it's a lot nicer currently that Youngstown but I just don't like Downtown proper. As for restaurants in Downtown Youngstown, there's about a dozen different places, mostly along West Federal though which isn't by the convention center (walking distance though). I recommend checking out Suzie's, The Kitchen Post, and Space Kat next time you're down there.

Gallagher Building Update: So the owner of Bistro 1907 (below the DoubleTree Hotel) owns a foodtruck called Wahaka Tacos and he just announced that he will be opening a brick and mortar store in the Gallagher Buildings aka the former Cedar's building. This is great news because the building has been in a state of neglect for far too long so hopefully this will be successful! However the timeline seems a bit ambitious. Nonetheless, I'm just happy that plans are moving forward at all. The Gallagher Building: North Phelps Street Pedestrian Mall: Source: Vindicator Also coming next year is the North Phelps Street pedestrian mall project (complete by July 2020). The street will be closed off for pedestrians only and one new restaurant, Gringo's Tacos & Tequila, has already announced it will open on the street in the "Commonwealth Land Agency" building. The closed off pedestrian mall (inspired by Cleveland's Fourth Street) will be on the block of N. Phelps between West Federal and Commerce. The road will be raised to sidewalk level and a gateway arch will be installed on the Commerce Street entrance. Similar improvements will be made to the small block of Phelps north of Commerce (next to Erie Terminal Building) however I'm not sure if it will be pedestrian only or not. If it is, that will be neat because it will directly connect to the staircase to YSU; with some more improvements to the street by YSU, Phelps could end up being the main gateway between YSU, Downtown, and the amphitheater. The pedestrian mall will also have overhead lighting and outdoor seating for restaurants. Other Downtown Developments: Local coffee house chain, The Mocha House, will be opening on the corner of Boardman and South Champion in the former Los Gallos space within Eastern Gateway Community College's main building. The Mocha House will become Downtown proper's second coffee shop (excluding YSU area coffee shops) with Joe Maxx Coffee Company being located in the Business Incubator on West Federal. Speaking of Joe Maxx, the owners got permission from the city to finally put some signage outside as well as outdoor seating. Meanwhile on the corner of Front and S. Hazel across from the amphitheater, local restaurant/club owner Earl Winner is opening Tavern 208 in the site of the former St. Vincent De Paul Building as well as the adjacent Daugherty Davis Co. Building. He is investing around $400,000 in renovations and hopes to have the restaurant open by the end of next month. Tavern 208's future location: All in all, Downtown Youngstown is really having a major renaissance. It is a great area and frankly is much better than Downtowns in many other small-mid size cities. After going to college in Akron this semester, I must say; Downtown Youngstown puts Downtown Akron (and Canton) to shame! Another major project which we will see by the end of next year is the rebuilding of Fifth Avenue between Downtown and YSU. The six lane road will be reduced to two vehicular lanes with bus lanes and a large bike/walk path on each side. This will be amazing to see and will help bridge the gap between YSU's main campus and the new Bookstore and University Edge developments. After that is complete, the city will work on rebuilding Front Street by giving it a similar road diet. The city is prioritizing Front due to it being nearby the amphitheater. Other roads that will be rebuilt in the next few years include Commerce, Rayen, and parts of Federal. And because why not, here's a photo of the new Youngstown Foundation Amphitheater and Wean Park from above (please note that much of the dirt is now grass): And a photo I took of the new "Youngstown" sign found in Wean Park near the Covelli Center:

I've got some exciting non-Downtown area development news! The YNDC recently announced that they will be building three market rate new homes in the South Side's Handels neighborhood. This is great news because this infill housing will help improve the street its on (Helena Avenue) and will remove most of the vacant lots on it. The location is here on Helena Avenue. Hopefully these houses will bring some people from the suburbs into the neighborhood and will help keep the neighborhoods south of Midlothian healthy and stable areas. The houses are 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bedrooms. One house will be $100,000, another $105,000, and the last $110,000. Renderings:

City hall looks beautiful! I love all this progress in Sandusky!

I've got another photo to share. The amphitheater opens for a free concert this Friday! I'll try to get down there and get some good photos. Apparently they will be greening the rest of the park and it should be fully covered in grass by the end of the summer; It'll look great! I also heard that the city is going to push to rebuild Front Street and include bike lanes and possibly a landscaped median like Federal St. has. I'd like to eventually see the parking lots on Front be replaced with park space or new apartment buildings.

The amphitheater is almost done! It looks great whenever I drive past it on Market Street Bridge. Way better than expected. I found this drone photo from KCAerials of the amphitheater - go follow them on Instagram, they have great drone photos of Youngstown! It's unfortunate that the parking lot is still in front of it but I think that the master plan is to replace it with park space. There's also a lot less open space between the amphitheater and river than I expected.

Southern Park Mall Redevelopment: So Washington Property Group has announced their plans to renovate and reenergize Boardman's Southern Park Mall. You can read the full article about the plans here. Basically the plan is to tear down Sears and replace it with new storefronts and a large open green space for events. As expected, I thoroughly despise this plan. For starters, at least put the event space next to the building or even just have a small road buffer in between. Why would they put several rows of parking in between? The green space that they expect to be a center of activity will be completely choked off by a huge parking lot and no one will use it because it's not connected to the mall at all. I'm planning on writing an email to them to try and make a case for at least putting the green space next to the edge of the mall with shop spaces on the side(s). Meanwhile, Cafaro Co. owns the former Dillards space and has not announced their plans. However, they hope to redevelop it into several different new spaces for tenants. Overall, this plan disappoints me (as do most mall redevelopments) and the fact that they are hoping this will become a "town center" is laughable.

Pretty much. It's about time they fix YSU up. I will say though, they have a long way to go. The campus is honestly pretty nice but the inner workings of that place are still pathetic. I've dealt with them recently when applying to colleges and they were not operating like other colleges and it was impossible to get anything done with their incompetent staff. From what I've gone through in trying to get anything done with them, it's no wonder why they are stuck in the commuter college category. They simply are just not on par with other colleges yet which is a shame. But I think in 10 years or less they will finally be a good college. And obviously, if they continue to improve and expand their number of out of town students, I predict that the recent building boom around campus will only be the beginning. I'd like to see them expand more into Downtown proper and work on making it into a college town environment. Other than the University, I'd say the whole resurgence of Downtowns across the country also drove Downtown to begin to improve and get more businesses. And outside of Downtown, the YNDC has been doing amazing work in stabilizing neighborhoods by renovating over a thousand houses so far.

Nice photos! I don't think NYO is getting rid of all their properties but they are downsizing a lot. They sold Realty Tower to new management, they sold the Harshman Building to EGCC, and now this to YSU. But I don't think they'll completely go under. I do know from some people that they are in some severe monetary issues; I know the bank is going after them over unpaid payments on the Flats at Wick property and that they are having some delays getting historic tax credits for the DoubleTree project as well which is why two of the restaurants supposed to go in there pulled out. I still think the CEO will end up getting a slap on the wrist considering how most corrupt people in Youngstown get off easily. Plus, he's generally very well liked in the community and frankly he is the main reason Downtown is what it is today and not a sad abandoned wasteland.

I love that Trump acts like it's a done deal while GM doesn't. Plus this sure as hell isn't a win for the area. I can't imagine most jobs will be saved by this.