MANSFIELD — The decaying West Park Shopping Center will be a problem for the next mayor and law director in Mansfield.
The Mansfield Planning Commission on Tuesday voted to give West Mansfield Realty a 90-day extension on the demolition order for the strip mall and massive asphalt parking lot.
That means current Mayor Tim Theaker and Law Director John Spon will not be in office when the extension ends in January.
Both men are in the last few months of their final, four-year terms in office.
Either Republican Jodie Perry or Democrat Sherry Vaught will be mayor and Rollie Harper will be the new law director, inheriting a four-year old administrative and legal problem with an out-of-state property owner.
The unanimous Planning Commission vote came after another lengthy meeting with attorneys and ownership representatives for West Mansfield Realty, a company that is part of the New York-based Namdar Realty Group..
As usual, none of the company ownership team or its Cincinnati-based legal representatives attended the meeting in person. Instead, they were once again on Zoom.
Attorney J.P. Burleigh and Dan Dilmanian, chief operating officer for Namdar, told the commission that the company had received “two written offers” in the past week for the once-prominent Park Avenue West strip mall located along the “Miracle Mile.”
The two men asked for a six-month stay of the demolition order to allow Namdar time to pursue the two potential offers.
Dilmanian said one offer was from a “self-storage user” that wanted to do a joint venture with Namdar.
“They propose to keep the existing structures and spend about $3 million to rehabilitate them and get them up to code as a self-storage facility,” Dilmanian said.
“The other offer is a group out of Utah, which is very active. We know them well. They have not indicated to us their intention for the property,” he said.
Dilmanian didn’t identify either potential buyer.
Instead, the Planning Commission granted a 90-day extension, though it’s not clear what comes next if the proposed sale doesn’t go through. The city has also issued repair orders for a stand-alone strip of properties on the east side of the parking lot, some of which are still occupied.
Namdar attorneys have made it clear they don’t believe the city has the right to order the demolition of the parking lot and said “litigation is imminent” after a commission meeting in August.
During that meeting in August, Namdar attorneys Sean Suder and Anthony Matinale said they were prepared to demolish the building.
But they challenged the city’s legal authority to order anything done to the large parking lot and said it was not a part of the original demolition order in November 2022.
That led the city to issue a new demolition order on Sept. 7, though it remains based on a Codes and Permits inspection done in September 2022.
The new order does list the parking lot, which the city alleged “contains multiple trip hazards and damage which endanger life and other property.”
Negotiations regarding that parking lot demolition between Spon and Namdar attorneys have not resulted in any agreement.
During a wide-ranging discussion Tuesday, Planning Commission member Dan Seckel told Namdar officials he had been on the property.
“These buildings are potential hazards. There are openings into these buildings, people going in and out. There’s doors broken and out. There seems to be some structural failure in some locations. Through this (proposed) six-month period, is there any intent on the owner to mitigate the nuisance part of this and the potential claims against them?” said Seckel, a Mansfield architect.
Theaker said the city’s Codes and Permits department had worked with the company and some of the facilities are now boarded up.
Marc Milliron, the city’s demolition coordinator, said keeping the buildings shuttered will be an on-going effort.
However, a Richland Source cursory check of the building after the commission meeting on Tuesday found at least two windows broken open in the back of the strip mall.
(Below are photos taken in the rear of the West Park Shopping Center on Tuesday afternoon.)
During the meeting, Theaker said the city will proceed with the demolition after the stay is completed if no sale is made.
“I think that there is a bad taste in our mouth right now because of the the length of time that we spent in the previous negotiations and the previous stays of letting you continue on.
“If (the sale) doesn’t happen, this commission will proceed with the current and existing demolition order,” Theaker said.
Planning Commission member Dr. Donald Dewald made his feelings known through two questions while the proposed six-month stay was being discussed.
“When was the last time any of you that are on this call have been at the site to see the condition of this subject area?
“Secondly, can we make the (demolition) stay shorter? Because I am not trusting these guys one iota,” Dewald said.
Dilmanian said neither he nor Matinale, who was also on the Zoom call, have been to the West Park Shopping Center property.
Dave Remy, the city’s public works director and a Planning Commission member, made a motion to grant the 90-day demolition stay.
“This has been going on for a year or more. The issues that we’re talking about (Tuesday) are not new issues. They’re old issues.
“With all due respect, I understand what they’re asking for. I tend to agree with Dr. Dewald that if we do give some kind of a stay, it’d be for a shorter period of time.
” I would move that we stay consideration of the (demolition) appeal for 90 days. The demolition order stays in place and the status of that appeal stays in place, but we shorten that term up to 90 days, versus five months or six months,” Remy said.