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Youngstown fights its way back from the loss of the steel industry
SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter
Published: January 17, 2013
Once known for its thriving steel industry, Youngstown has undergone a major transformation in recent years, redefining itself in an effort to attract new businesses and rebuild its population.
“Before the steel mills closed in the ‘70s, our population was around 165,000, now we are down to about 65,000,” said Youngstown Mayor Charles Sammarone. “The steel mills brought people here and at one time we were one of the top steel producing cities in the country. We’ve been trying to climb back ever since they closed,” said the lifelong Youngstown resident, who began serving on the city council in 1984, becoming mayor in 2011 after Mayor Jay Williams stepped down to take a position with the Obama Administration.
Located about 65 miles southeast of Cleveland in the region known as the Rust Belt, the Mahoning County municipality, which also extends into Trumbull County, was incorporated as a city in 1867. It was named after John Young, an early settler from Whitestown, New York who established the community’s first sawmill and gristmill (used to grind grain into flour).
The city’s large deposits of coal and iron as well as its hardwood forests, which were necessary to produce charcoal, eventually led the area to develop a thriving steel industry. By the mid-19th century, Youngstown was the site of several iron industrial plants, and from the 1920s to 1960s, it was known as an important industrial hub with companies like Republic Steel and U.S. Steel having set up operations.
All that changed on Sept. 19, 1977 with the announcement that a large portion of Youngstown Sheet and Tube was closing, a day which is known as “Black Monday” by residents since it is regarded as the death knell of the old area steel industry.
The blow was slightly cushioned by the presence of the auto production plants, which have continued to provide employment for workers. Today General Motors Lordstown plant is the largest industrial employer in the area.
DeMaine Kitchen, Sammarone’s chief of staff, said after losing population for years the city began to reverse the trend about six to eight years ago.
“There has been renewed interest in Youngstown and we are seeing investment in the community, especially in the downtown” said Kitchen.
“Youngstown State University has been expanding, and the Covelli Centre (once known as the Youngstown Convocation Center and the Chevrolet Centre) has resulted in a lot of activity.”
The multi-purpose arena opened in 2005, and offers a wide variety of attractions ranging from sporting events to concerts. Kitchen said it has fueled the opening of new bars and restaurants in the downtown area.
“For years there had been a lot of vacant buildings in the downtown but that began to change around 2000 to 2002,” said Youngstown Economic Development Director T. Sharon Woodberry. “After the Covelli Centre opened, we started looking at creating residential and mixed-use developments. As more young professionals came to Youngstown, three vacant buildings were converted to housing.”
Recent additions to the downtown have also included the George Voinovich Government Center and state and federal courthouses. In 2005, Federal Street, a major downtown thoroughfare that had been closed off to traffic to create a pedestrian plaza, was reopened.
“Visually this was a huge improvement, and it has helped traffic flow,” said Woodberry.
“The children’s museum (OH WOW! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology) took over a large structure that had been vacant in the downtown for years,” said Woodberry.
The oil and gas boom has also fueled growth in the area, with V&M Star, which is owned by the Vallourec Group, investing in a new state-of-the art $1.1 billion dollar pipe mill near its existing plant. The 1 million square-foot facility, which is known as the Brier Hill Industrial Park complex, opened in 2012, and employs about 350 people, producing tube goods to service natural gas exploration.
“The expansion of the facility helped increase our tax base, allowing us to avoid making cuts during the downturn,” said Sammarone. “The jobs are also attracting residents which is helping to grow the population.”
V& M Star and Exal Corporation are currently the largest industrial employers within the city’s limits, but the largest non-industrial employers are Humility of Mary Health Partners and Youngstown State University.
Kitchen said the Youngstown Business Incubator, which was founded in 1995, has also helped to infuse the downtown with new life. The incubator houses startup technology companies, providing them office space and other resources to help them flourish. Some of the companies have earned recognition, outgrowing their current space.
Between 2006 and 2007 the Youngstown Business Incubator was able to benefit from $8.78 million in state and federal funding for the demolition, environmental remediation and renovation of a block of vacant nearby buildings, allowing them to offer additional space to those growing companies to encourage them to stay in the city.
“The city has a strong partnership with the federal government,” said Kitchen. “HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) has sent a representative here to work on economic development.”
In August 2012, the departments of Defense and Commerce announced that they had chosen the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMI) as the winner for the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation pilot.
The proposal was led by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and its development involved numerous regional partners including Youngstown State University. The pilot institute focuses on additive manufacturing, with the goal of demonstrating the value of collaborative problem solving and asset building that could occur on a broader level if the network were to be established.
Woodberry said the NAMI project has further sparked a growing interest in putting up a hotel in the downtown area.
“It is viewed an as innovation center, and it will bring in visitors from big name companies from out of town who will need accommodations. We are still discussing it but we are getting closer,” said Woodberry.
Although officials are happy about development in the downtown, they are still working to revitalize the city’s neighborhoods.
“We have commercial activity downtown but there are commercial corridors on all four sides of town which intersect into the neighborhoods, and we need to attract investment in the neighborhoods,” said Woodberry.
“We have been successful in attracting a grocery chain that is a member of the Food Lion Group (Bottom Dollar Food). In the last two years they have opened three stores in the neighborhoods, which is important in terms of real estate development. This is a starting point for future development,” Woodberry said.
“One of our main focuses is eliminating blight,” said Kitchen. “We are using Moving Ohio Forward grant money to demolish vacant properties, and concentrating on code enforcement.”
“One of the biggest reasons people leave is because they don’t like the way their neighborhoods look,” said Sammarone. “If we can clean them up we can keep from losing population, which helps with our tax base as well as federal funding since it is based on the population.”
“Our violent crime rate has decreased,” said Kitchen. “The Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) is working to prevent problems by looking at the causes instead of making arrests after the fact so hopefully we will see further decreases.
“A lot of the people who were born here and moved away would not be opposed to coming back if we can eliminate some of the problems.”
Youngstown does have a number of recreational and cultural attractions. Mill Creek Park is one of the city’s most treasured assets, featuring nature trails, Fellows Riverside Gardens and two 18-hole Donald Ross Golf Courses as well as some historic aspects.
The DeYor Performing Arts Center houses the Powers Auditorium, the Ford Recital Hall, the Adler Art Academy and the Overture Restaurant, and is the home of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra.
“We have been successful in attracting businesses and entertainment venues but we do not have a retail component in the downtown,” said Woodberry. “Efforts are underway to make that happen.
“Our commercial and business vacancy rate is not where we want it to be yet either but we are putting together a plan to address this.
“We expect manufacturing and industry to continue to be part of our success story in the future,” said Woodberry. “We will also continue to build on our technology block with NAMI, which is a starting point for innovation associated with manufacturing, and I expect it will produce tremendous success in the future.”