YOUNGSTOWN — City council will consider legislation Wednesday to move forward on a number of projects, including about $2.7 million for improvement work to downtown streets and a $1.6 million rehabilitation to the South Avenue Bridge.

Council also will vote Wednesday on whether to permit the board of control to enter into contracts to renovate the second floor of city hall for up to $290,000 and for improvements around two city schools using a $300,000 state grant.

Council will vote on authorizing the board of control to advertise for bids and enter into a contract with the best and lowest bidder for improvement work to be done to Boardman Street between Walnut and Market streets and to Walnut Street between Commerce and Wood streets.

The project would cost up to $2.7 million with almost half paid by state and federal grants, said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.

Council agreed Feb. 19 to permit the board to enter into a professional services agreement for the project’s construction administration and inspection for up to $270,000.

The project should start in the summer and be done in late summer or early fall, Shasho said.

The work includes repaving, reducing vehicle lanes, adding diagonal on-street parking on Walnut Street, new crosswalks and curb ramps, improved lighting, landscaping and new traffic control signals.

The project also features a pedestrian walkway, or step street, on Walnut Street to better connect downtown to Youngstown State University.

It will be the second set of concrete steps with a few landings and landscaping tying Commerce to Wood streets, with a project on the west side of downtown near Phelps Street about 13 years ago to replace an aging walkway.

The site of the proposed pedestrian walkway is currently a steep asphalt hill near the Choffin Career and Technical Center at the top and a parking lot for the downtown YMCA at the bottom.

City council is being asked to vote Wednesday to allow the board of control to sign a contract for up to $1.6 million to rehabilitate the South Avenue Bridge as well as permit the board to hire a consultant for construction engineering for that project for up to $170,000.

Of the $1.6 million, the city is paying $634,000 with the rest coming from federal and state funding.

Because of a need to relocate utilities, that project won’t start until spring 2026 and take about four months to finish, Shasho said.

The small bridge goes over the Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad Co. train line just south of the larger Peace Officers Memorial Bridge that crosses the Mahoning River.

During construction, the section of South Avenue near the bridge will be closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic with detours.

The vehicular detour will be three miles in length and use Williamson Avenue, Market Street and Indianola Avenue. The pedestrian detour will be 0.7 of a mile in length and use Williamson Avenue, Gibson Street and Dorothy Avenue.

Access will be maintained to all adjacent properties, residences, businesses and intersecting side streets. That includes the old South Side Park, which is not open to the public, and the South Side Veterans Memorial.

The work includes rehabilitating the bridge’s substructure, refacing the abutments, replacing the approach slabs (which connects the roadway pavement and the bridge) as well as the guardrails, sidewalks, bridge railings, curbs and pavement markings.

The bridge was constructed in 1957 and had major rehabilitation work done to it in 1990. It underwent further improvement work in 2015.

The bridge is listed as “poor” and “structurally deficient” by the Federal Highway Administration.

The FHA’s National Bridge Inventory report states the structure is “intolerable requiring high priority of corrective action” while the substructure has a loss of a section or deterioration.

The report added about the substructure: “Local failures are possible. Fatigue cracks in steel or shear cracks in concrete may be present.”

Also, the bridge railings and guardrail do “not meet current acceptable standards or a safety feature is required and none is provided,” according to the report.

About 9,100 vehicles use the bridge daily.

Of Ohio’s 29,960 bridges, about 5% are classified as structurally deficient.

CITY HALL WORK

The administration is asking city council to permit the board of control to hire a contractor for up to $290,000 to renovate the second floor of city hall into new offices for the community planning and economic development (CPED) department.

The space, which is about 4,000 -square feet, has been empty since the clerk of courts office moved from there in 2018 to the city hall annex as part of the relocation of the court system.

CPED’s location on the fourth floor in the former city prosecutor’s office is about half that size.

City officials hired a firm a year ago to design the space and prepare bid documents. At the time, the project was estimated to cost $500,000. But the city reduced the scope of the project.

After the municipal court moved to the city hall annex, the city did work on the former courtrooms, also on city hall’s second floor. The police department uses the space for meetings and offices.

If council authorizes the work, the city hall work as well as the downtown street project and the South Avenue Bridge contracts would be awarded before May, Shasho said.

“We’ve got a lot of work going on,” Shasho said.

Also on Wednesday’s council agenda is authorizing the board of control to hire a firm to make improvements near Volney Rogers Elementary School, a K-5 school at 310 S. Schenley Road, and Youngstown Preschool, the former Kirkmere Elementary School at 2841 Kirk Road.

The $300,000 cost for the work would come from a state Safe Routes to School program grant. City council voted March 5 to enter into an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation to accept the grant.

The 30-day project would be done this summer, Shasho said.

The work includes installing barrier-free curb ramps that are compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, the removal and replacement of concrete sidewalks, pavement markings and the installation of school traffic control signs.

The administration is also asking council to allow the board of control to enter into a contract with a consultant to design a sanitary sewer replacement project on South Meridian Road near Canfield Road.

The cost is up to $57,000.

Shasho said a sewer replacement project, estimated to cost $570,000, could be done this fall.

Replacing aging sewers in that area is needed because of a history of breaks, he said.