Horizon Science Academy Youngstown Inc. has bought the Austintown building where its school has been housed, paying $600,000 for the property at 4470 Norquest Blvd., Business Journal Daily reported Friday, November 13.
The Mahoning County Auditor’s Office website listed the seller as the late Bishop George Murry of the Diocese of Youngstown, who held the property as a trustee, according to Business Journal Daily. The building was formerly Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Business Journal reported, and the school’s sponsorship records name Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish as its former landlord.
The purchase converts a tenancy into ownership. Horizon Science Academy’s Austintown campus, a satellite of Horizon Science Academy Youngstown, has operated at the Norquest Boulevard address while leasing space; the school’s own site lists 4470 Norquest Blvd., Austintown, as its address. Owning the building gives the public charter school a permanent home in Austintown rather than a lease that has to be renewed.
Horizon Science Academy Youngstown is a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade, college-preparatory public charter school focused on STEM education — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — according to its sponsorship contract, and the Austintown campus is part of the Concept Schools network.
The network has been putting federal expansion money to work in the Youngstown area. Concept Schools announced in 2025 that it had been awarded nearly $14 million in federal Charter Schools Program grants, including about $2 million for Horizon Science Academy Austintown to expand its programming and add seats for Youngstown-area families.
The purchase also fits a moment when Ohio charter schools are actively buying and upgrading buildings with public help. In September 2026, Ohio awarded about $14.3 million in federal Charter School Facilities Incentive Grants to nine public charter schools for capital needs — a program whose eligible uses explicitly include purchasing buildings — as part of a broader $20.7 million package announced by Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
For Austintown families, the immediate change is stability: the school on Norquest Boulevard is staying put, now as an owner. What happens next is the paperwork of ownership — the recorded transfer through the county auditor — and whatever facility plans the school brings forward now that the building is its own.
Photo: Kasamias9, CC BY-SA