LORAIN — A tentative agreement has been reached to save St. Joseph Community Center.

The agreement, announced Tues­day, would keep the troubled com­munity center at West 21st Street and Broadway open under the man­agement of Industrial Realty Group, the same California-based company that now operates the old Lorain Assembly Plant and has plans to build a luxury community at the site of old quarries on the county’s west side.

Lorain Mayor Tony Krasienko said getting the letter of intent signed by the city, IRG, the Lorain County commissioners, South Shore Com­munity Development Corp., Com­munity Health Partners and the Ohio Department of Development was the biggest hurdle to keeping St. Joe’s open.

“We’re going to be able to change the appearance and dynamic of the epicenter of the city,” he said.

The final details still need to be ironed out and approved by the var­ious boards, but Lorain Service Director Robert Gilchrist said he’s hopeful the deal will be finalized by the end of the month.

But not everyone is convinced the deal will save the center and the Veterans Affairs clinic that has served local veterans for years.

Rosa Gee, who, along with her husband, former Marine Joseph Gee, is spearheading a Facebook campaign to save the VA clinic, said she’s heard promises before that St. Joe’s will remain open, only to face renewed worries that the clinic would close.

“Until it’s in stone and names the VA clinic with the Veterans Administration also saying it is staying, I will have my suspicions and my doubts,” Gee said. Tammy Ramirez, president of South Shore, which technically owns St. Joe’s, said she is optimistic that IRG will be able to reverse the sliding fortunes of the community center.

“I only see this as a positive move, I really do,” she said.

Under the deal, IRG will sign a five-year contract to manage St. Joe’s, and the city and commissioners will have to approve the contract. IRG will be able to terminate the contract with three months’ notice after the announcement next year on whether the city will receive a $1.2 million Clean Ohio grant it plans to apply for to help fund improvements to the center.

The agreement also calls for the current South Shore board, which has been largely defunct since the city took control of St. Joe’s at the beginning of the year, to be replaced with a new ninemember board. Five of the board’s members will be handpicked by IRG, which gives the company a controlling number of seats. Three members will be selected by the city. The county commissioners will pick the final board member.

Ramirez said she doesn’t mind stepping aside.

“It’s always good if you’re going into a new era to have fresh faces,” she said.

Krasienko also said he doesn’t object to putting IRG in control of the nonprofit South Shore board or paying the company, run by Stuart Lichter, a management fee.

“His successes and failures and our successes and failures depend on getting people in there,” Krasienko said.

There will be several physical changes to the property under the proposed deal, which includes a provision that CHP turn over several buildings it owns near the center, including the Reidy-Scanlan building, the parking garage, an old gas station and what is commonly known as “building D” — the oldest part of the former hospital — to the city or South Shore, which have plans to demolish them.

CHP also will contribute up to $360,000 to help with the demolition and environmental abatement costs.

Gilchrist said the land on which the demolished buildings sit will be turned into parking lots.

He also said the plan to tear down the parking garage hasn’t been finalized. Until the garage is torn down, it will be maintained by South Shore, the agreement said.

The city also will contribute hundreds of thousands of dol-lars’ worth of grants to refurbishing the center under the deal, including a $480,000 grant to make the center’s heating and air conditioning system more efficient.

The city also will commit a $166,500 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that must be spent on medical infrastructure and a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the project.

The city also will continue to seek additional grants for other restoration and rehabilitation projects, the agreement said.

The state of Ohio also has agreed to forgive half of an outstanding $2.7 million loan to South Shore, long considered one of the major stumbling blocks to the community center’s long-term future.

The state also agreed not to charge interest or require payment on the remainder until the center begins to have “a surplus cash flow” after operating expenses, payment to other South Shore creditors and IRG receives a “commercially reasonable management fee.”

The remaining $1.35 million of the loan already was backed by the city and Lorain County commissioners, which would have to pay their respective shares if the center ceases operations, Krasienko said.

The city also will provide a $250,000 loan to South Shore from its revolving loan fund to cover operating losses, under the terms of the agreement.

St. Joe’s nearly closed last year when longtime manager South Shore announced that it didn’t have the money to keep the doors open past Dec. 31, 2009. That touched off fears that the building would close and that the tenants would leave the city.

In addition to the VA clinic, the center also includes a Lorain County Community College satellite branch and offices for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Avon, and U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Copley Township.

The city stepped in and took over the sprawling community center’s day-to-day operations while city officials sought a more permanent solution. City officials have said for months that they were in talks with a development company to save St. Joe’s but have provided few details.

In July, Lorain City Council agreed to allow the city to operate the center through the end of September while city officials continued to work on the deal.

Krasienko said IRG, with its experience in turning around older facilities, such as the former Ford plant on Baumhart Road, appears to be the fix he and other city officials had sought.

“We’ve been a nice stop-gap measure, but they’re a professional company,” he said.

County Commissioner Lori Kokoski said she would like to see an expansion of the VA clinic and other medical services at St. Joe’s, but she doesn’t draw the line there.

“There’s a lot of room in there,” she said. “It’s a community center, so anything that serves the community would be good.”

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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