Mayor Tito Brown weighs in on future of Realty Building lot
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Someone unfamiliar with downtown Youngstown may not even realize the Realty Tower Building once stood at the corner of Market and East Federal Streets, because it's now just another gravel space on Central Square — but Mayor Tito Brown hopes it doesn't remain that way.
'My focus is to have residential and retail that will complement what's going to happen long-term downtown, and I think if we stick to that plan, it's a win for us,' Brown said.
Mayor Brown said his economic development team has talked with Brian Angelilli, whose company, YO 47 Properties, owns the land where the Realty Tower once sat.
'I think Brian's kind of just waiting for kind of the dust to settle and just get through this first year. When you talk with Brian, he does have great ideas,' Brown said.
For as big as the Realty Building was, for as tall as it was, 13 stories, the property that it sat on really isn't all that big. According to the Mahoning County Auditor, it's just a little less than 2/10 of an acre.
Despite its small size, Bill Lawson of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society says the Realty Tower plot is significant because it occupies a corner of Central Square — first laid out in 1798. This is one of the oldest pictures, around 1870, shortly after the Civil War monument was erected. By the 1930s, Central Square was taken over by trolleys, cars and people. It's a historic place.
'The way the city developed around the square, the events that occurred in the square for generations, going back almost to the beginning,' Lawson said.
'You know, the one thing I can confidently say is I don't want a parking lot,' Mayor Brown said.
Both Mayor Brown and Bill Lawson agree that something needs to go where the Realty Tower once stood.
'It's going to be hard to really duplicate it but we want to get as close as we can and so you can look when you go downtown, it's like, that's a nice building, and you wouldn't be able to tell it was just built recently,' said Brown.
'I think the key thing is going to be quality of materials and the aesthetics of a popular design now that it reflects that and so that's how you create a substantial building that's going to last for generations,' said Lawson.
One other thing Mayor Brown would like to see on this spot is a plaque to commemorate the death of Akil Drake and what happened there one year ago.
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