a closer look inside The Semple

Tucked right next to the Home Savings building on Federal Street is the Semple Building, which has had a really interesting history as a structure over the years. (more on that history later)


Its current renovation will enable the Semple to become the 3rd structure of the Youngstown Business Incubator complex, with all three buildings connected for the employees of various technology companies to walk back and forth and interact.

Here's a shot of the exterior:


but what's the current status of the construction on the inside?

let's take a look...


Simply put, the Semple Building is a 17,357 sq ft four-story filled with a melange of different types of wood and varied brickwork. In the many nooks and crannies of the building, one can see how the structure has developed over the years.

For example, large cut stones fill in the area in the basement.


Also in the basement, one can see the access tunnels that lead to underneath Federal Street. At some point, these access tunnels were bricked over.


As bricks were added over the years, many locations have multiple layers of the material.

Here's a bricked-in archway...


Here's a section with four different types of brick in one view...


Going up to higher floors, the new steps meet the old bricks...


the view from the 2nd floor of the Warner Theater and the Ford Theater...


and on the top floor, the original skylights will illuminate the space of a future downtown company...


finally, here is the finished product, with one quadrant of the building already inhabited...


it's shaping up to be a nice project.

can you envision your technology company in these kind of spaces?

then come to downtown youngstown and set up shop.
the doors are open for the next generation of entrepreneurs.