SitemapThe city is taking back ownership of the long-closed Bottom Dollar grocery store on Glenwood Avenue from ONE Health Ohio, which planned more than seven years ago to turn the building into a medical facility. The city board of control voted Thursday to refund the $150,000 paid in March 2018 by ONE (Ohio North East) Health Ohio to purchase the 18,000-square-foot building on the South Side. “There were concerns with the delay in action,” said city Law Director Jeff Limbian, a board of control member. “There were benchmarks and expectations that were not met. They were not moving fast enough. It’s been over five years, and still we wait.”
ONE Health Ohio announced in April 2016 that it wanted to buy the building. City council approved an agreement a few months later to permit the board of control to sell the former Bottom Dollar at 2649 Glenwood Ave. to ONE Health Ohio. The board of control signed a development agreement in December 2017 and voted in March 2018 to sell the property for $150,000 to ONE Health Ohio. Bottom Dollar closed in January 2015 after the company was sold to Aldi Inc. The city then acquired the property — the former Cleveland Elementary School and a playground — from Aldi. “We’re not disparaging ONE Health Ohio but they understand it’s time to part ways,” Limbian said. “We have to move on and move in a different direction. We’ve had conversations with ONE Health, and it’s a done deal.”
There are some interested parties that want the South Side property, but nothing has been finalized, Limbian said. “With the advancements made on the Glenwood Avenue corridor, the mayor wants to see it continue to move forward, and that includes the development of that building,” he said. Councilwoman Anita Davis, D-6th Ward, the ward where the building is located, said: “I’ve been pushing for the city to get it back. I’m glad. There are things in the works. Something productive will come from it.” ONE Health Ohio planned to provide medical, dental and behavioral health services to lower-income people at the South Side location as well as a food distribution site and possibly a pharmacy.
Under the development agreement, ONE Health Ohio had two years from December 2017 to open or be required to sell the property back to the city. The city actually gave the agency almost six years. “There were many reasons to hope that their efforts in other places would ultimately prove successful here,” Limbian said in explaining why the city gave ONE Health Ohio additional time. “The nature of city government is such that, with a private entity enthusiastic that they are going to do the right thing, that they will in fact do that.” Limbian added: “Unfortunately, the promises made to Youngstown were not kept, and the mayor showed them an abundance of patience. Now is the time to move on.”
ONE Health Ohio, headquartered in Youngstown, operates seven health centers and four outpatient addiction treatment centers in Mahoning, Trumbull and Stark counties. Dr. Ronald Dwinnells, ONE Health Ohio’s CEO, couldn’t be reached Thursday to comment. He initially said the project would cost about $4 million but later said it would cost closer to $6 million. ONE Health spent about $500,000, including the $150,000 sale cost as well as work to demolish the interior portion of the store, landscaping, resurfacing the 62,000-square-foot parking lot, installing entrance gates and exterior electrical work, Dwinnells wrote in a Sept. 6 letter to Glenwood Neighbors, an organization of businesses and residents on and along Glenwood Avenue.
“A significant cause of delay for this project has to do with our reallocation of resources — financial and manpower — to address the COVID pandemic and vaccine programs during much of 2020 and 2021,” Dwinnells wrote in the letter. “This caused a significant strain in the budgetary structure and our attention as well as priority shifted to focus on how to protect the public effectively and adequately.” He added that since the pandemic, “specialized staffing” has “been in short supply and all health facilities have experienced this difficulty including local hospitals. We are concerned that without adequate staffing, our service delivery abilities would be hampered.”
In that letter, Dwinnells wrote that he anticipated interior renovation work would start in December and work would be done by July to September. The renovations never were started. In the past seven years, there have been numerous projects in the Glenwood Avenue corridor including the opening of the Glenwood Business Center and other businesses, the purchase of the former Foster Art Theatre by the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. as well as several businesses and residential properties undergoing renovations.
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