West Park Shopping Center owners given 60 days to present plan, repair or demolish
The city of Mansfield Building and Codes has given notice to the owner of West Park Shopping Center that they have 60 days to make a plan to repair or demolish part of the dilapidated shopping center on Park Avenue West.
Marc Milliron, building and codes manager, said the area in question includes everything west of Dollar General Market, up to Little Caesar's Pizza, but not including the pizza shop.
He said Thursday that the property owners, Moshe, Property Management, of Great Neck, N.Y., were notified on Sept. 16 following an inspection on Sept. 14.
Milliron said the next step will be for the city to move forward with the demolition process.
Shopping center 'is in really bad condition'
"It is in really bad condition," Milliron said.
He added that he doesn't foresee the center being demolished in 60 days.
The Sept. 14 inspection findings included Ohio Building Code structural damage, exterior damage, and interior damage. The report detailing code problems is more than a page long.
"As a result of the mentioned inspection, it is the opinion of the fire department that the building should not be occupied until the repairs are made," according to the inspection documents. "The mentioned fire violations above create a high fire hazard to anyone within the building, especially while they sleep, along with the hazards associated with escape."
The inspection city documents cite "1157 Park Avenue West, Mansfield OH to be insecure, unsafe, abandoned or vacant and open and unsecured to trespass, structurally defective or especially liable to fire, or endanger life, health or other buildings or property."
The Dollar General Market closed earlier this summer.
No major improvements since city's 2019 warning
Two years ago, the News Journal reported that two-thirds of the stores sat empty, their windows painted black. Maintenance of the property has fallen off to the point that in July 2019 the city gave the mall's New York owners 30 days to fix numerous safety issues or the mall would be condemned, spurring the owners into action.
Not much has changed since then in terms of the shopping center's dilapidated appearance.
Most of the vacant stores' windows in the shopping center are still painted black and only a handful of businesses remain open.
The appearance of the complex, for years a bustling center of activity, is a far cry from the $2 million, 20-acre shopping complex that opened in 1952, hailed in News Journal archives "as the first suburban shopping center to be built in this area."
lwhitmir@gannett.com
419-521-7223
Twitter: @LWhitmir
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Most vacant windows at West Park Shopping Center are painted black
