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So that now makes 3 "high rises" in Downtown Youngstown for sale. Not a great sign in my opinion but at least it opens up some potential. I think there's definitely a market to turn one of these buildings into apartments. All of the current apartment buildings seem to be fully occupied and it's been several years since the last luxury apartment project in Downtown.

I recently came across this picture of Market Street in the South Side from what I presume to be the 1940s. It took me a long time to figure out what location this even was since so many of the buildings have been torn down (embarrassingly though I just noticed the street name is in the picture!). This is the corner of Market and Avondale, just south of Uptown. Today it's where the Shell gas station is located. As you can see, most of the original buildings are gone, although you can still see the South Side Annex Building in the distance and the old bowling alley on the left side of the picture is now a convenient store. It really saddens me to see all of the lost density and to think of all the potential this neighborhood could have had if it didn't decline so much. If you guys want to see more before and after pictures, let me know! I came across a ton of historic photos and I think it might be fun to recreate a bunch of the pictures and make an article about it!

I've got some random small news from around the city today: CityScape Buys Briel's Flowers Property: https://businessjournaldaily.com/cityscape-buys-briels-flowers-property-for-145000/ Youngstown CityScape, the group who landscapes many public areas and roadways around the city, specifically in Downtown, has purchased Briel Flowers, a 90+ year old business on Belle Vista Avenue in the West Side. Briel Flowers is the last greenhouse/gardening center left in the city of Youngstown. CityScape hasn't outlined their full plans yet, but they plan to keep the business operating as a greenhouse and will use it to aid in their landscaping projects. Greyland Vintage Opens Downtown: A vintage store and record store, known as West Side Vintage, opened a couple years ago on Mahoning Avenue across from West Side Bowl. They are moving locations to Downtown and will be occupying the space which once housed the former Greyland Gallery vintage store, which was a well known business for many years. They will be changing their name to Greyland Vintage. It's a bit sad to see them leave the West Side. I was hoping them, West Side Bowl, and others would help revitalize that corridor - I have big dreams of that "Rocky Ridge" business district being Youngstown's version of Highland Square! 😁 But on the contrary, it's great to finally have an interesting retail attraction in Downtown which will draw people into the area. It will also be on Boardman Street, which is a very underused part of Downtown. New Shops on Mahoning Avenue in Rocky Ridge: And just as West Side Vintage moved out of the Rocky Ridge business district, a few new places moved in luckily! Cyclebreakers Records just moved into a spot inside of West Side Bowl, which helps fill the void West Side Vintage left in the neighborhood. Across the street, a new vegan restaurant called Cosmic Kitchen recently opened. And a health foods market/holistic market called Evolve Market opened up next door to that. Again, I hope this stuff will be the catalyst for finally pushing this neighborhood into being a destination similar to Akron's Highland Square. There's a ton of potential for these few blocks!

YSU Excellence Training Center Opens https://businessjournaldaily.com/leaders-tout-excellence-training-center-opening-at-ysu/ The new YSU Excellence Training Center on the corner of Fifth and Commerce in Downtown has just opened. The building saw the re-use of an existing vacant industrial building, as well as a new addition to the building leading up the hill along Fifth to the corner of Wood and Fifth. The building includes space for uses such as additive manufacturing, robotics training, machining classes, and more. The project was done in partnership with Eastern Gateway Community College and will also have programs available to K-12 students and displaced workers. The building design is pretty lacking an I wish they had done something to spruce up the facade along Commerce - but at least it's something new that will help further expand YSU's footprint into Downtown along the Fifth Avenue corridor.

The Flats are improving quite nicely! I made a stop down there while my family was visiting Cleveland to try MGK's coffee shop embarrassingly enough 😁 I was really blown away by how huge of a crowd there was there on a Sunday morning! I expected it to be a tacky tourist trap, but I actually really recommend it - the drinks were very unique and creative compared to most coffee shops, which I appreciate. They couldve gotten lazy with it and still got customers, but they definitely put a lot of care into the place. They also served cocktails, but sadly I'm still a bit shy of being 21 to try those! But yeah, the line was absolutely insane, so make sure you have time set aside if you go there. Anyways, it's great to see places like that open in Downtown Cleveland since they generate a ton of foot traffic to the area and get visitors from the suburbs, and out of towners, to come into Downtown. I think the Flats should try to keep attracting "touristy" places such as 27 Club that have the potential to draw in a huge crowd of visitors into the neighborhood. We also took a walk down to the water, and I love how nicely the waterfront finally looks - it's great to finally be able to get riverfront/lakefront dining options in Cleveland. Also, my dad (who spent a lot of time down there in the 90s!) couldn't even recognize the Flats anymore now that all the seedy bars have been replaced by modern buildings and yuppie restaurants!

Robinson-Shuba Statue Unveiled in Downtown https://businessjournaldaily.com/robinson-shuba-statue-unveiled-in-a-victorious-ceremony/ The $400,000 Robinson-Shuba statue project has been completed in Downtown Youngstown's new Wean Park (home to the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheater). The statue commemorates the famous April 18, 1946 handshake between Jackie Robinson and Youngstown native George "Shotgun" Shuba. Shuba's son Mike Shuba was present at the ceremony and gave a speech. The handshake, which followed Robinson's first at-bat home run, was the first interracial handshake in major league sports, which caused a lot of controversy at the time. The project also includes a small pedestrian plaza around the statue, which includes the terraced seating picture below.

It would be nice if at least the few blocks of High north of Lane isn't completely replaced with new development. It's one of the last places on High Street that still has a gritty vibe and some old bars and non-chain restaurants left. Plus, there's already a pretty good street-wall from Lane to around Patterson. Don't get me wrong, I love all the new development, but I do think it leaves a huge void in terms of campus culture to have nothing but overpriced chains everywhere. Ideally, I'd like to see Old North Columbus and SoHud remain less polished and corporate than elsewhere around campus.

That would never happen, but it is seriously needed. That area already has a fair amount of good businesses, it's just not a very coherent neighborhood since it's all strip malls. It would be a really cool place to live if they actually made it walkable - it would feel like a nice small town right next to the national park! But in its current state, I'd definitely pick Highland Square or somewhere nearby to live. Also, as the poster above me mentioned, a CVSR stop here would give the valley a huge opportunity for tourism if they went ahead and made it into a walkable main street area. It's got so much potential, someone just needs to make it happen.

City Eyes $1.5 million expansion of Downtown Street Projects https://businessjournaldaily.com/city-eyes-expansion-of-downtown-street-projects/ The City has announced today that it intends to extend the $31 million SMART2 project Downtown in which several Downtown streets are being rebuilt. This expansion would consist of a road diet for East Boardman Street and Walnut Street as well as replacing the closed pedestrian street from the end of Walnut Street up the hill to Choffin area with a staircase, similar to the one on North Phelps Street. This expansion will essentially lead to the rebuilding on every street in Downtown that needed redone - Walnut currently has a landscaped median already, but has been in desperate need of a lane reduction. It's great to see this side of Downtown will be getting some attention now. Smokey Hollow Yosteria Also, a new design for the new Yosteria location in Smokey Hollow was approved today. It looks a bit better than the last one in my opinion. But, it's still a strange project. Essentially, it's a pizza shop opening up in one of the last houses remaining of Smokey Hollow, a once bustling Italian neighborhood home to the owner Alex Zordich's ancestors. He says he hopes to have it open in a few weeks. Currently, he already operates a Cornersburg location. It's a really bizarre project in my opinion, but I'll give him credit, it's definitely a unique and creative use for an otherwise unremarkable building which wouldn't have lasted long without a project like this.

Awesome! I'm glad to hear someone in the neighborhood bought the church! I sort of hope they don't put a straight up coffee shop in there though as I worry they'll really cut into Culturehouse's business. But a bicycle store is a great idea - I think Wick Park is the perfect neighborhood for some unique stores like that which could draw people from the whole area in.

Warren's Packard Apartments Awarded $819,000 in Tax Credits for Renovation https://businessjournaldaily.com/packard-apartments-awarded-819000-in-tax-credits-for-renovation/ The historic Packard Apartments in Warren, built in 1898, has just secured $819,000 in Ohio historic preservation tax credits to help fund its restoration. The project is estimated to cost nearly $5 million and will be home to seventeen market rate apartments. These are located north of Downtown, but within walking distance of it. The neighborhood isn't in good shape, but it is still home to many beautiful examples of Victorian and Queen Anne architecture as it was once Warren's most prestigious neighborhood.

Yet again, I'm very impressed by all the redevelopment Newark is seeing! I wasn't aware of Newark Station before, but it looks really cool. I love projects that reuse old industrial sites like that. I think it's a good way to memorialize the industrial past of the city while making it new again. I'd like to see more cities take up projects like that. I think it's also great for the neighborhoods around it as the Newark Station project could be a stimulus for further development in the neighborhood surrounding it.

There's probably under a thousand residents Downtown, so not many. But for context, the block above it was converted from an alley into a pedestrian mall, with the vision of Cleveland's East Fourth Street in mind. So far, it has been successful and several businesses are using it for seating. Unlike Cuyahoga Falls (or even Youngstown which once closed Federal Street to cars), Phelps is not a crucial road for cars, and is already just a one way alley basically. I just feel like if there's already one block of a pedestrian plaza, and people don't drive on the road much anyways, that the pedestrian plaza should have just been expanded to another block. The lack of car traffic shouldn't matter as the current street doesn't have any on-street parking anyways, and it's already at the busiest pedestrian corner of Downtown anyways. Here's a post where I show some pictures of the new and existing pedestrian plaza Downtown. Keep in mind, it's gotten more use though since the time when those photos were taken. I'm not sure if they are landscaping the Mahoning Avenue one as there was never a rendering to my knowledge. But based on the medians they put up, I doubt it. They don't look like they have space for plants. I hope they at least spruce it up with some painted lanes on the bike path and maybe some pylons or something in the medians. Also, glad to hear you got to Bistro 1907! I haven't been there in a while, but I remember liking their chicken and waffles a lot! And speaking of the YNDC in Idora, they've also just broke ground on 4 (I think) new houses on Mineral Springs Drive.

That would be a perfect place for a coffee shop/club too. That little business district (would it be considered SoHud?) has so much potential. It has some cool businesses already, but I always wished they had a coffee shop or something up that way to draw people like me into the neighborhood. Plus as others have said, it would be such a shame to lose another original neighborhood commercial building like this!

It looks like work on South Phelps Street has already begun, which kind of shocks me. They've ripped up the entire street from Federal down to Front by the amphitheater. I assume this means they're going ahead with the planned streetscaping project - but who knows, maybe they're just doing some other sewer or electric work under there like they did to North Phelps Street a million times already 😁 The plan is to keep car traffic, but to increase sidewalk space and make it a pedestrian-prioritized corridor to link YSU to the riverfront. Also, the Mill Creek Park Connector, the protected bike lanes between Mill Creek and Downtown, appear to be pretty much finished. I'm not sure when the grand opening will be, but honestly, they look to be in a useable state already. Here's the proposal for South Phelps. I've also seen proposals where they curve the roadway into an S shape to try to keep traffic slow through there. Honestly, I think they should've just went all out and make the whole thing an extended pedestrian plaza. It's not like many cars will need to use this anyways. They could have even gotten a bit ambitious and made a plaza outside of City Hall, but that's obviously not going to happen.

Wow! I can't wait to see the final result of the 15th & High development! That plaza area is going to be such a popular and vibrant spot to be. It'll be awesome to see Pearl Alley be put to use there too, and not just be a sketchy shortcut to take anymore 😁

Foster Theater Restoration: There's some great news today! It's official, the historic Foster Theater on Glenwood Avenue will be saved by the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC)! It's unclear what they plan to do with the building though, but I imagine they will maintain some form of theater or concert venue usage. Anyone familiar with Youngstown will know that the theater has had a seedy reputation ever since it became an adult theater in the 70s. In fact, it was one of the last operating adult movie theaters in America until COVID finally caused it to close for good. It's great that this building will be saved as it is the last neighborhood theater left in the city besides the Uptown Theater. Believe it or not, the building actually isn't in horrible shape - in fact, the marquee even still lights up! Also, the YNDC will also be restoring the historic and long-vacant Superintendent's Residence in Mill Creek Park at 914 Old Furnace Road and turning it into a single family residence. It's in a good neighborhood with a great park-side location, so I'm sure it won't last long on the market!

Cascade Gorge, Mill Creek Park: I usually don't post nature pictures, but I've been hiking a lot more this summer and have been working on hiking every trail in Mill Creek Park. One of my favorite places in the park is Cascade Gorge, which I recently discovered. It's a creek with a series of small waterfalls and rapids as it flows down a hill towards Mill Creek. The trail is pretty simple, and half of it is a boardwalk. But there is also a difficult off-shoot trail, which goes down a very steep hill to the bottom of the small waterfall - I did this yesterday, and it was a bit treacherous as it was quite muddy and I didn't have hiking shoes on! It's also possible to get to the bigger waterfall (the one in the first picture) from there, but it requires some tricky rock maneuvering which I wasn't in the mood to do. But it does have a nice pool at the bottom which people like to swim in. Overall though, this is an extremely hidden gem, most people in the area have never even heard of these waterfalls. East Cohassett Trail: Here's a couple iPhone pictures from my favorite Mill Creek Park trail, the East Cohassett Trail. I enjoy this trail because it's one of the few that feel like you're truly in nature - While Mill Creek Park is an amazing urban park, it is pretty thin as it is sandwiched between dense urban neighborhoods, so it's often hard to get the full feeling of being in nature here. But this trail does a good job with that. It also has some cool lesser travelled side-trails that go up steep ravines. It has great views of Lake Cohassett as well as the waterfall at the Lake Cohassett Dam.

It's sad, but is anyone actually surprised? Plus let's be real, the announcement of the electric Ford F-150 pretty much stole whatever lane Lordstown may have had in the electric truck market

In case anyone's interested, I came across some more renderings of the SMART2 infrastructure projects in Downtown Youngstown on this page. Also, in terms of construction, Fifth Avenue is moving along quite nicely and several blocks are nearly finished. The new protected bike lanes and road diet along Mahoning Avenue linking Downtown and Mill Creek Park are nearly finished as well! West Federal Street: Front Street: South Phelps: Rayen Avenue: Personally, I'm most excited for the Front Street project! Currently, the road is in really bad shape. It would be great to finally revamp that street to complement the new amphitheater and riverfront park! It's definitely a long way off, but Front Street would be prime for new construction once this project is finished. There's a couple parking lots where I've always envisioned luxury apartments/condos overlooking the amphitheater and river - but again, I'm just dreaming basically 😁

Youngstown Approves EPA Grant for Downtown EV Charging Stations https://businessjournaldaily.com/youngstown-approves-epa-grant-for-ev-charging-stations/ City Council just approved a $60,000 EPA grant to install 8 electric charging stations at two different locations in Downtown Youngstown. The first location is the lot at the corner of Fifth and Federal next to the WRTA Station. This lot will hopefully also see some improvements as it currently does not look too inviting. The second is at the parking lot where the former Kress Building was, near the corner of Federal and Phelps. The charging stations should be installed by fall hopefully, though I have my doubts about that timeline for the Fifth and Federal lot - due to its location next to Fifth, which is receiving a ton of streetscaping work, I assume the city may opt for a complete resurfacing on that lot.

Hopefully all the development on the periphery of Newark slowly trickles down into the older neighborhoods. I haven't spent too much time in Newark, but from what I've seen, a lot of the older neighborhoods need a lot of work. That being said, I loved Downtown Newark and can't believe how nicely they fixed up the area! Either way, it's cool to see Newark progressing and finally seeing development. Hopefully it will be more like a proper satellite city than just another suburb though.

There's so much potential for Akron's "middle neighborhoods" - Goodyear Heights and Firestone Heights for example have pretty good bones. They both have a small main street area and a relatively healthy housing stock from what I've seen. There's also a good amount of parks and green space in these neighborhoods. They just need a bit of a facelift in my opinion. But there's no reason why they can't improve and move from stable to good desirable neighborhoods. Akron has only a few "good" and "great" neighborhoods currently, but it has so many neighborhoods that are right on the edge of becoming desirable places to live again. EDIT: Woops, I meant "Firestone Park!"

Wow, these are some great projects! I'm kind of shocked that they're building new dense apartments across from Kroger on 7th. Not that I care, but I figured there'd be some pushback towards building such a big building on a already congested and busy side street. Also, it's great they're building apartments where the burnt down church was on Indianola! I figured it would take a long time to fill in that lot since it was relatively small and not in the most desirable campus neighborhood by any means.

Even as a younger person, I often lament how "authentic" feeling places get turned into just another piece of corporate monotony. But at the same time, that's sort of just the natural progression of things. It's hard to keep a place's cool gritty feeling, because eventually, it will get so popular that fancier development comes in and changes it. It's like how people complain about how much High Street in Columbus has changed - it sucks that the original "authenticity" and "culture" is gone, but again, it's pretty impossible to prevent places like High Streets or the Flats from changing. You can't keep a place's gritty authenticity when real estate investors start noticing how popular of a neighborhood it is to hang out in.