A corridor leading into downtown Youngstown will soon be getting a face lift and road improvements, with upgrades beginning at Mahoning Avenue to Meridian Road.

"We've done some demolition along the way, we're actually doing demolition now there, trying to clean up some of the blighted properties that were there using ARP funds," Michael Durkin, Code Enforcement Blight Remediation Superintendent said.

The work will also rehab sidewalks making them more accessible, add in new traffic lights and improve the overall aesthetic of the area.

"We're doing property by property code enforcement cleaning up some of the signage you know old signs that you know some of the places have cigarette signs and different things that aren't allowed in the city, gas line replacements and things of that nature," Durkin said.

Durkin said he hopes to attract more people into the city this way.

"There's a lot of businesses on Mahoning Avenue and people want to go somewhere where they feel safe, it looks nice, it looks clean," Durkin said. "We're just trying to clean up our city. We're trying to get it back to the way that it was, years and years and years ago. Make it more inviting for folks to come in and to live here and to do business here," he said.

Durkin tells me it'll take about a year to complete all of this work but by the end of next summer, you'll start to see beauty where eye sores once were.