LIBERTY — A plan for a 4.7-mile stretch of Belmont Avenue in Youngstown and Liberty will provide a literal roadmap to revitalize the corridor.

Liberty officials met Tuesday with Katie Phillips, project manager for the Belmont Avenue corridor plan, to discuss the effort, which is getting started.

“We want to make this meaningful and not just another plan,” said Liberty Trustee Arnie Clebone. “We want it to help us make real progress. Youngstown and Liberty have the same (goal): we want to improve the perception. We want people to come back here.”

Phillips works for MS Consultants Inc., which was hired by Youngstown for $140,000 last month to create the corridor plan. The city also hired Hunter Morrison, its retired planning consultant, for $10,000 for planning, development and project management of the corridor plan.

Youngstown received $200,000 from the state Appalachian Community Grant Program, awarded in March, using money from the federal American Rescue Plan, for the Belmont Avenue plan.

The work is just getting underway with completion of the study by October 2026, Phillips said.

“It’s meant to look at commercial uses along the corridor, open spaces, residences, any type of sidewalk and street safety,” Phillips said. “We’re looking directly at the street itself and making sure it’s conducive to development, and people will want to visit it and stop along the way.”

The study will look at Belmont Avenue from the West Federal Street intersection in downtown Youngstown to Excellence Drive in Liberty. The plan also will probably look at about a half-mile distance in either direction along the corridor, Phillips said.

In addition to examining economic development potential, Phillips said the study will look at beautification standards, traffic issues and ways to make Belmont more walkable.

The study will include recommendations as well as ways to fund those proposed changes, Phillips said.

“This plan will be the foundation,” she said. “It’s meant to be an implementable plan, something that is a guidebook.”

A steering committee and focus groups — including business owners, residents and other stakeholders — will be important to the development of the plan, Phillips said.

The Eastgate Regional Council of Governments studied the same stretch of Belmont Avenue in 2020; it called for senior citizen residential development, public transportation expansion, and traffic and pedestrian safety enhancements.

That plan will serve as a foundational document for this study, Phillips said.