County Port Authority puts off Midway Mall decision for at least 30 days

It will be at least another 30 days before the Lorain County Port Authority decides whether or not to buy Midway Mall in Elyria. Following a brief executive session Monday that was closed to the public, the board voted unanimously to give Port Authority Executive Director James Miller and the board's legal counsel another 30 days to do their due diligence. The vote was 6-0. The board's seventh member, John Novak, was not present Monday due to another commitment. Miller said he is awaiting reports on the condition of the property before he makes a recommendation to the board of directors. The board will meet again in January, he said. On Dec. 6, the Lorain County Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 to give the county Port Authority pre-approval to make a possible $13.9 million offer to buy Midway Mall on Elyria's north side from its numerous owners. Commissioners Matt Lundy, a Democrat, and David Moore, a Republican, voted in favor of the plan. Commissioner Michelle Hung, a Republican, voted against the plan and claimed Moore was doing deals behind his colleagues' backs. Moore declined to address Hung's accusations. Commissioners said Miller was awaiting environmental and mechanical reports on the state of the mall property, and while offering to put up the purchase price left the final decision up to the Port Authority board. The mall, built in the mid-1960s, has lost nearly all of its anchor stores in the last 20 years. Namdar Realty Group, Industrial Commercial Properties, KE Elyria, Water Street Development and several other smaller landowners now all have pieces of the mall property. They have ended up in court against each other, though the most recent lawsuit appears to have been settled with ICP and Namdar agreeing to work together to redevelop the property. For a time, both the county and the city of Elyria were taking parallel paths toward redeveloping the nearly-empty mall. The county had discussed putting a multi-million-dollar convention center on the property to replace the mall, but Lorain County voters have twice defeated a hotel bed tax at the polls that commissioners said would get the project started. The city of Elyria has has discussions with The Cleveland Clinic to put a health-and-wellness facility on the property, along with possible "clean" light manufacturing space. Various Lorain County residents have taken to social media or showed up at public meetings to recommend the mall become an Amazon.com warehouse, or a location for a new community recreation center for Elyria, or even a homeless shelter. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.