8.26 | 2007

 SOME PEOPLE DON'T SEE much when they look at downtown Youngstown. When Louis A. Frangos looks, he sees opportunity.

 Frangos, of Cleveland, has bought some of downtown's most prominent properties in less than a decade; several of them were bought in the past two years.

 He's bought so many that he is one of the major nonpublic owners of property in the cities downtown.
 Some of Frangos' purchases were buildings already filled with tenants, such as the First National Bank Tower and the Harshman Building.

 But most of his other buildings are either mostly or completely vacant.

 Frangos plans to convert three of the buildings-the Wick Building, the Realty Towers and the Erie Terminal- into downtown housing.
 There are others-specifically the Stambaugh Building and the Paramount Theatre- that Frangos acknowledges are lost causes.
 Frangos, 59, was born in Campbell but moved to the Cleveland area at age 6. Frangos often visits the Mahoning Valley to spend time with family members still living there.

 Although it's been years, Frangos remembers coming downtown as a child to shop and enjoy parades and festivals. "It's a city I knew as great when I was a kid," he said. And, it's one Frangos said can be great again.

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