The historic Wick Tower in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, has seen both peaks and valleys since its completion in 1910 — even boasting the tallest building in town for several decades. But hard financial times affected the stately building and it slowly fell into disrepair. When the building sold to local developer Dominic Marchionda in 2012, work began to restore the dignified structure to its original splendor — but adding modern amenities and features to speak to the tastes of today’s renters.
City Architecture, a Cleveland-based firm, designed 32 upscale and modern individual apartments and included a convenient deli on the first floor. With a nod to its rich past, the developer wanted to keep the integrity of the building and take advantage of the existing tall ceilings and its solid steel construction.
In April 2014, John Yurcik with Preferred Sales, an Uponor rep firm based in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, received a phone call from Clayton Heating and Air Conditioning, a local mechanical contractor hired to install the hydronic heating and cooling distribution system for the Wick Tower.
“I had worked with Tim Clayton, the owner, on several radiant applications, and he’s very familiar with Uponor,” Yurcik says. “He had one question for me: ‘Can I run a four-pipe fan coil system through the existing structure using Uponor?’”