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Hello and welcome to the Byline
Breakdown, the podcast where we bring

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you the stories behind the headlines.
And also, happy New Year to all of our

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listeners. I'm your host, Mike
Moliterno, and today we are going to

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journey to the small but mighty village
of Lowellville, a community that's

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buzzing with newfound energy and
ambition. Situated along the Mahoning

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River with a population of just about
1,100, Lowellville is a testament to the

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power of transformation and the
resilience of small towns.

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Our story begins with the Mahoning
River, once restrained by a dam and now

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flowing freely, which has been setting
the stage for an incredible revival.

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Joining us today is Dan O'Brien, the
managing editor of the Business Journal

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and the writer who brought us this
story. Uh Dan, great to have you here.

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Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you, Mike. Thank you.

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First, I guess could you just set the
stage a little bit and just tell us

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about the community of Lowellville for
people who may not be familiar cuz it is

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kind of tucked away in this little
out-of-the-way area of uh Mahoning

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County.
Sure. It's a it's a small hamlet and

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it's, as you mentioned, flows along or
it's stationed along the Mahoning River

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and it's sort of bisected by the river
itself.

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And it's got a long history of immigrant
population. At one time, mostly Italian

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population there in in Lowellville. And
it's it's got a very tightly knit,

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very familial uh quality about it and
it's a community where everybody seems

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to know everyone else.
And it was once really anchored by um

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heavy industry. At one point, there was
a Sharon steel plant uh that made steel

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hoops, I believe. And there's a foundry
there today that's still is in

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operation.
Not not by Sharon Steel obviously, but

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it had
an old

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industrial history to it as well as uh
is also a a trolley line that once ran

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ran through it, too.
Um so that you know, it it grew up along

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the same sort of path as a lot of small
industrial communities did along the

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Mahoning River
throughout the late 19th and early 20th

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centuries.
But obviously deindustrialization

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industrialization changed all that. The
steel mill retrenchments

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during the '70s and the '80s transformed
a lot of these communities. And part of

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that was the transformation of the
Mahoning River itself as a lot of those

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major industrial plants had located
along the banks of the Mahoning. They

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would use the river to cool the steel
and the manufacturing

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products that they were pumping out of
there. Um

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it it also polluted the river as well.
Yeah, the story of the Mahoning Valley.

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And and you know, it it it was just an
awful

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awful thing when you look at some of the
EPA reports from the 1970s where

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it picked out fish with anomalies.
Right.

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Physical anomalies whether that meant
three eyes or or a number of different

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fins growing out of the the fish that
were found there, but it was bottom line

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heavily polluted with toxins. And what's
been interesting over

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the last five or six decades is that
since these plants have been idled,

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since the steel industry really is no
more along the river

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and they don't use the river
the Mahoning River has actually been

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cleaning itself.
Right.

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It's been sort of self-scrubbing over
all of these decades.

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And cleaning the river is integral to
really establishing a quality of life

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aspect along this whole region. And
Lowellville's one of the beneficiaries

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of this. And the first step to helping
clean and and accelerate

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cleansing of this river is, of course,
the removal of those dams along

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Right.
along the Mahoning because it's those

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dams that collect all of that toxic
debris that's been left over from all

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those years. And once that's removed, it
will allow for that sort of

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self-scrubbing.
And it slows the flow of the river.

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Yeah, yeah. And this opens it all up.
So, that was the first step is we saw in

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in investing millions and millions of
millions of dollars to remove the

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the Lowellville dam.
About 2 million or so, I believe, was

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was used to to open that up, which now
opens up

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the potential for a riverfront park
Right.

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that they're establishing right now.
The the removal of the dams along the

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Mahoning River is is an ongoing process.
They're sort of working their way north,

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I guess. The Mahoning River kind of goes
in in weird directions. But uh but

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Lowellville was, I think, the first dam
to be removed.

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And um so, they're working their way
more towards Warren and everything now.

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But I guess
once that happened, as you said, quality

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of life uh
amenities were now possible. And I we'll

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talk about public investment in a bit,
but I wanted to start with some of the

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private investment that started coming
into Lowellville. Could you tell us a

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little bit about the the Estefans and
what they've been doing?

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Sure. Matt Estefan, who is a businessman
from Canfield, and his wife Jean, have

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pumped in a lot of their own money to
restore historic two historic buildings

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along the
along the waterfront.

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And it is
here where

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he wants to take an old building that
was really

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earmarked for the wrecking ball at one
time. There was serious discussion about

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raising it and he said, "Wait, there's
still some good bones in this thing."

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And when I visited him visited him a few
weeks back at the site, he had gutted

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most of the inside of this old building
and is now preparing to turn it into

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three condominiums overlooking the
Mahoning River. So, it's really got this

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wonderfully scenic panoramic view of the
Mahoning as you walk out on on this deck

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that extends into the
out of the back near the near the

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bridge. And it really gives you a nice
panoramic view of

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what the Mahoning is today and it's
really strikingly beautiful.

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So,
a number of hundreds of thousands of

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dollars he's pouring into this
particular project right now. It may go

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much higher as anybody in the
construction industry will tell you that

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it doesn't always fit fit the initial
budget and there's probably going to be

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higher costs associated with it. And
next to it is another building that he

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wants to turn into a
cigar bar and a small diner if you will

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or a small place where you could get
hamburgers and and and food like that.

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And
again, using the river as that major

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amenity as this also backs up against
the river, building decks out where

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people can enjoy a nice scenic meal
overlooking free-flowing Mahoning River

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now. And that is largely been a draw to
any other city that that you see. I

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mean, a lot of the river cities have
used the river as that central amenity

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in order to draw attention and to draw
patrons to specific businesses, which is

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what
these investors want to do.

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Did he mention a timeline for either of
the projects?

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Yeah, it looks like they're going to be
finishing up sometime in the spring of

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2024. So, the spring of this year.
Oh, okay. Okay.

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uh
some completion uh completion with the

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restaurant, he believes, and uh fairly
soon

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uh
by by March or May, the condominiums. Uh

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and it was
they were moving along pretty quickly

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when I was uh
when I visited them a few weeks ago, so.

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And and you also talked to another
private investor, Ray Carlson.

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Yeah, Ray's been investing in Louisville
for years.

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Right.
Uh and and his story is is quite

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interesting. As as a pharmacist, he had
moved to Louisville and wanted to start

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a pharmacy of his own. Didn't quite work
out. Uh

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this is many years ago, uh but he was
really endeared to Louisville uh itself.

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He lives in Poland Township out outside
of the city

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of Louisville, but nevertheless has
always felt that this community would be

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perfect for small-town development. So,
he began by

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establishing a
um

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uh an administrative and
extended operation of his business,

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which is RC Compounding,
and he bought an old bank, restored it,

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and now that's RC Compounding on Water
Street in in um in Louisville.

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Uh he also invested in
uh the famous Scarselli's restaurant uh

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which was destined to close at one point
and he believed that well, I don't think

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it would be good for the community to
lose this particular landmark.

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Mhm.
So he invested money in in in his now

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restored put some more restoration into
that particular building

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and now that is uh is is is active today
as well he purchased some other older

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structures in the village and has turned
two of them into Airbnb's

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one of which has a
uh

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golf simulator in it and a pool table.
So

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Right.
folks who will really want to enjoy the

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small town atmosphere in Louisville
Swing Club or something like that or

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Carlson Swing Club I think. So he's
invested money in into these buildings

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and uh his latest project is taking an
old furniture building

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and restoring that into a
uh private events center

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that could also act as an extension of
his own business but also host certain

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events and parties and so forth on on
Water Street as well and uh you know

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he's sinking a lot of money into the
audio visual

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amenities in this particular place which
really sound quite quite good. I mean he

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wanted to one of the best sound systems
in in between here and uh

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in the House of Blues in Cleveland but
it's uh

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it's a
$100,000 or something like that.

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he's put a lot of money into this
particular sound system so bands can go

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in there and actually record
and they they can record their live

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stuff or or whatever they want to do. It
could act as a big recording studio as

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well. So, he's still trying to figure
out exactly what he wants to do with it,

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but he's redone this entire building,
and it's uh

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really coming along. So, the
transformation is is really well

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underway. And there've been a lot of
talk about it for years and years and

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years and years and years, but now it's
actually happening. Well, we're going to

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take a quick break, uh but when we
return, we're going to talk about the

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role of public investment in
Louisville's resurgence. So, stay with

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us.

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Dan, before the break, um we mentioned
some of the public investment that's

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going on there. I guess, could you talk
about that and how crucial that is to

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what's happening in Louisville?
Sure. Uh a lot of the public investment

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has
gone to the river, of course. Uh the

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removal of the dams is where the most of
uh the money has been spent. Um aside

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from that, the Louisville has been very
successful in getting grants

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that could open up small business
development along, for example, Water

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Street. A few years back, Louisville
received a number of grants, $25,000

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each for businesses to perform facade
improvements,

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as well as, you know, hundreds of
thousands of dollars that

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were allotted to development of the
riverfront as well as hundreds of

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thousands of dollars that were devoted
to the riverfront and this will

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eventually become a uh
a nice pavilion that is under

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construction
as we speak. A canoe and kayak launch

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was added
a year or so ago a year and a half ago.

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And the ambition is to extend this 14
acres

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further
along the river and establish a large

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riverfront park
Mhm.

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that can accommodate just about anything
whether it's frisbee golf or whether

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it's some other activity that they may
have planned.

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Um so that's a lot of where the public
investment is going on right now and all

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of that comes with matching funds too.
So the community has to raise a certain

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amount of money themselves or the county
as well in order to match these state

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grants and and perhaps federal grants
might come their way.

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Um so with all of this going on, what do
you see as the the biggest challenge

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facing Louisville's revitalization?
I I

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think you need folks to you know use it.
Right.

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You know as we mentioned before there's
little over a 1,100 or so residents.

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So I think the biggest challenge for
Louisville is to get the word out.

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You know why is this community
a great alternative than going to the

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big cities you know bigger cities like
Cleveland or Pittsburgh

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or or even Youngstown or Warren and the
argument is and and Mayor DeCianni will

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tell you this that you know a lot of
folks are are enjoying the the small

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town life.
They like to get away and and have a a

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nice relaxing evening at a place that
isn't uh crowded and and traffic

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congested and and and things like that
and places like that. There's been

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plenty of public investment to support
this. There's been infrastructure

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investment as well that uh was was
poured into Louisville and it's still

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being done there.
Um

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so some of the challenges I think hey,
you know, you you really need to create

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a good marketing campaign and making it
a destination spot for folks.

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Now, there's also talk for other private
investment on the other side of

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the river at least in the opposite end
of of of the uh town

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uh along the river. So, more condo
development might be in in the works in

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the coming years. So, when we see this
happen and you really see the physical

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work underway,
um that might convince

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00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:29,320
a lot of folks out there that, you know,
this isn't just lip service. People are

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actually doing things to
to rebuild these small villages

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00:16:32,080 --> 00:16:38,760
in the Mahoning Valley. And it looks
like Louisville's on the right path to

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do that. I mean, we've got other small
towns and communities that are really

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struggling
with the same sort of

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of issues. Uh you know, depopulation
uh and and and the Mahoning Valley

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losing, you know, residents
uh over the years has has really

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impacted these small communities
especially. So,

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what Louisville is trying to do is is
something really quite interesting and

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extraordinary for its size especially.

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Well, thank you very much Dan for
spending the time with us today and

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sharing your story. You can read Dan's
story at businessjournaldaily.com.

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A link is in the show notes. We will be
back next Thursday with another episode

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00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:26,280
of the Byline Breakdown. I'm Mike
Moliterno.

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00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:32,880
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