Western Reserve Port Authority leaders and Mahoning County commissioners have earned a fair share of kudos for their action last week toward constructing a shiny new $60 million county government center in the heart of downtown Youngstown. If all goes well, and we pray it shall, their productive partnership will create a win-win-win for the county and the Mahoning Valley.

Mahoning County residents will win through centralizing key operations and services in one convenient, efficient and welcoming space.

Downtown Youngstown will win through a potent shot of revitalization via the major new edifice to modernize its skyline and through the hundreds of new employees and visitors flocking to the central city to support its growing network of shops, restaurants and businesses.

The entire Mahoning Valley will win by proving that thoughtful and well planned public partnerships can succeed in reaping tangible economic-development rewards for communities large and small throughout our region.

Those victories, however, will not come without hard work and a dedicated commitment to transform grand plans into concrete realities. We therefore strongly urge port authority and county leaders to stay the course, establish a strict timetable for each phase of this massive project and listen to affected stakeholders and all constituents on planning the structure’s design, tenants and services.

According to memorandums of understanding authorized by the commissioners and the port authority serving Mahoning and Trumbull counties, plans call for the demolition of the more than 50-year-old Eastern Gateway Community College building and parking deck by the end of this year with construction of the government center to begin early next year toward a projected opening in early 2028.

Throughout that process, fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers of Mahoning County must loom as a major consideration. So far, indications look promising that goal will be taken seriously. The $2.5 million originally spent by the county in 2024 to acquire the former InfoCision building in Austintown is being credited toward this new downtown project.

In planning the design of the building, care also must be taken not to take county taxpayers to the cleaners with unnecessary and costly features and frills. Attention to operational efficiencies, energy-saving standards and long-lasting construction protocols also must be priorities.

As of now, the project remains very fluid. Commissioner Geno DiFabio last week put it thusly, “Everything is on the table. No decisions have been made. But the plan is to consolidate county services out of that building. I’m very excited for the reorganization of our 17 departments.”

As a starting point, leaders should consider a public hearing to gather maximum public input on best practices for the new facility and to answer questions about its use. How many of those 17 departments should relocate? What problems at their current facilities need to be addressed for the new government center? What will become of the county’s existing administration building and of the problem-plagued Oakhill Renaissance Place county office structure?

So far, two of the county’s largest departments — the Board of Elections and the Department of Job and Family Services — that have long endured poor and unsafe conditions at Oakhill strike us as prime candidates for much more tolerable, efficient and centralized locations.

Once those decisions are finalized and construction begins, the downtown also will reap rewards. For two years now, the sprawling Thomas Humphries Hall at EGCC’s Mahoning Valley campus has stood as an empty white elephant of East End downtown decay. The explosion and demolition of the former Realty Building next door to it has compounded that decay.

The new East End energy unleashed by this project could very well stimulate additional downtown reinvestment. Partnerships similar to that on the project between city and county governments and other public agencies such as WRPA or with private entities should be explored.

And such reinvestment need not be limited to downtown Youngstown. Witness the successes of other such partnerships, not the least of which is visible in the ongoing construction of the mammoth $1 billion Kimberly-Clark production plant and distribution center in Trumbull County. That giant economic development elixir would never have gotten off the ground without the sturdy and focused partnerships among the corporation, the WRPA, Lake to River Economic Development, the Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber, local governments and others.

For now, planning for the downtown government center must proceed carefully, cautiously and at the fullest speed possible. Its success would bode exceptionally well for use of the same formula of prolific partnerships to grow the Mahoning Valley’s population and to fuel its momentum from a struggling has-been Rust Belt metro area to a robust center of 21st century industry and commerce.