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Boardman trustees approve measure to aid Southern Park Mall upgrades
BOARDMAN
Southern Park Mall now can move forward with plans to invest in nearly $4 million worth of upgrades.
Township trustees approved a resolution Monday that sets up an energy-improvement district, which will allow the mall to take advantage of the federal Property Assessed Clean Energy financing program.
“We have to form a special improvement district,” township Administrator Jason Loree explained. “What that allows the mall to do is get a low-interest loan for energy-efficiency upgrades from the [Western Reserve] Port Authority.”
The township’s role in the district is to act as a tax collector. The port authority lends the money to Southern Park Mall LLC, and the township collects funds from the mall. The dollars are paid back through assessments on property taxes.
The township will neither gain nor spend any money on the project; it simply acts as an intermediary between the lender and the mall.
Although the township does not directly benefit from the project, township officials say it’s a positive for the community.
“I think we’ve all been holding our breath, because it [the mall] was getting a bit aged,” Trustee Tom Costello said. “This is a good thing.”
“It shows that they’re here for a long-term commitment,” Loree said of WP Glimcher, the Columbus-based company that recently took over ownership of Southern Park Mall.
WP Glimcher was established this year after Washington Group Inc. and Glimcher Realty Trust merged. Washington Prime is a spin-off of Simon Property Group.
New ownership could mean good things for area shoppers, Loree says.
“I think we’re going to see some big development,” he said.
Southern Park Mall expressed interest in the PACE program in fall 2013, and at that time a mall representative said funds would go toward roof replacement and updating interior lighting with more energy-efficient LED units. The work reportedly was slated to begin in spring 2014, but never did. A mall representative met with the port authority last November to again discuss the financing program.
Sarah V. Lown, economic-development manager for the port authority, told The Vindicator in February that Southern Park Mall representatives “have expressed interest in making this happen this year.”
The next step, Loree said, is to establish a board for the new district.
Neither a WP Glimcher representative nor a Southern Park Mall representative responded to repeated requests to comment for the February Vindicator story, and have not commented since.