The Youngstown Business Incubator plans to lease and renovate the old Vindicator building downtown and use it as a hub for more businesses.

"This is a transformational project for us," Barb Ewing, YBI CEO said. "The renovations to the second Vindicator building, the larger of the two that are downtown, is really the lynchpin of a much larger project to create an aerospace and defense hub in the Mahoning Valley centered around advanced technologies," she said.

Ewing continues, the building will be used for more than just one purpose.

"Research and development will be one piece of the puzzle. We definitely want to develop intellectual property that can be developed and then turned into new companies and new products for sale. The building will be used for portfolio companies to grow and accelerate, we've got two companies that need more space right now but there's really space for about seven additional, a total of seven companies to go in," Ewing said. "It could be very early stage, it could be companies that are ready to launch, or it could be a place where we're attracting new businesses from outside the community and they need a smaller space to get started in," she said.

YBI is seeking $26 million from the Ohio Department of Development to make this all happen.

Ewing tells 21 News, bringing new businesses in would create hundreds more jobs in Youngstown alone and that would spread out to other areas.

"In total there would be about 750 jobs created across the four county region and about $191 million in total economic impact, over the four years," Ewing said.
That is, potentially the time it'll take to complete the project.

Ewing also said it's important to create a workforce that will make young people want to stay local, so she's working with Youngstown State University to be able to offer students additional opportunities.

"We'll be offering certifications and internships, workshops, we want them to have great opportunities that are exciting for them and that they have an opportunity to have real career growth," Ewing said. "So we'll be working very closely with our industrial base to get our YSU students into those programs," she said.

Ewing said if they're awarded the money, about $6 million of it would go directly into the building.

YBI is hoping to hear back about receiving those funds by the end of this year and if they don't get them, Ewing said completing this project will be difficult.