YOUNGSTOWN — The Economic Action Group imagines a public art-filled city.

The organization, which is focused on economic development and entrepreneur assistance in Mahoning and Trumbull counties with an emphasis on Youngstown, compiled the Youngstown Public Art Opportunity Catalog, a 165-page online magazine of sites that could be used for murals and other public art projects.

Many of the sites are located in the downtown area and on or near the major thoroughfares leading there.

Kennedy Kish, marketing manager for EAG, said, “Our corridors are a big part of how people get downtown, so (this would be) bringing some public art to life to draw people in when they’re coming downtown and just bringing some life to the city, following the Realty Tower (explosion), COVID, all the construction. We just wanted to give people a nice way to make it easy to have art that draws people in, that celebrates our city’s heritage, that really just brings life to the city, especially following those events.”

Just because a location is included in the catalog, it doesn’t mean it’s ripe for the painting. The information was compiled from public records and photographs taken from sidewalks and public roads. The catalog’s introduction states, “Anyone interested in completing a project must obtain consent from the property owner beforehand.”

“We have the ownership information in the catalog for each site, and artists can either contact the owners directly themselves, or we can facilitate that interaction and initiation of conversations and ideas for making public art on a property,” Kish said. “We’ve worked in the past with some of the local businesses.”

EAG released its first site catalog in 2016. Since its release, more than 10 murals have been created downtown as well as other projects, according to Kish. The organization has played a role in 17 public art projects, serving as fiscal sponsor for the “A Handshake for the Century” statue in Wean Park and commissioning a mural on Mahoning Avenue about Youngstown native and 1942 Heisman Trophy winner Frank Sinkwich.

Artist Pat McGlone was selected by EAG to do the Sinkwich mural, and believes there are plenty more viable sites for public art.

“There’s some really, really great options,” McGlone said. “That’s the wild part for me. When I talk to muralists around the country, they scrape and claw (for sites). There’s some absolute gems of walls for public art that we have at Youngstown that in any other city, people would be crawling, fighting each other to try to get something up on. And for Youngstown, they’re just empty right now. So there’s a ton of potential for it.”

A lot of that comes down to money. Grant money is available from the Ohio Arts Council and various foundations, but public art isn’t a priority for many property owners, especially in economically depressed areas.

“When you work with some of these businesses, a lot of them will want to do something like this, or have aspirations to do something like this, but funds just get allocated to more essential things,” McGlone said. “And I think that’s been a huge problem with Youngstown. This has been a city that’s been in economic decline for the last 50 years. So it’s been bare essential. It’s been people just taking care of the necessities. And I feel like culture has taken a backseat to that. So for the Economic Action Group to find some of these buildings and allocate some financial resources to showing all the culture that this city has. I think it’s been awesome, because it’s hard to find that support financially.”

From a technical standpoint, the texture of a building’s exterior is important because it can impact what can and can’t be artistically on the facade, McGlone said. From a personal standpoint, he is looking for sites in high-traffic areas with an unobstructed view.

“You want it in a high-traffic area, not only car-wise, but I always like to do mine in a foot-traffic area,” McGlone said. “I feel like, when people can see those, those brush strokes and and those slight mistakes and see that it was done by hand, I feel like there’s a connectivity to that.”

The catalog can be accessed on EAG’s website at eagworks.org/resources.