YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Kohan Retail Investment Group’s failure to pay its overdue property taxes on Southern Park Mall could cost Boardman Township more than $250,000 annually, township Administrator Jason Loree said.
The shopping center, which New York-based Kohan Retail purchased in December 2024 for $24.1 million, was among the topics Loree addressed Wednesday at a Rotary Club of Youngstown meeting.
To date, the township has had no direct communication from Kohan Retail, which has struggled to make good on its property taxes since purchasing the mall last year. Several payment attempts have been rejected for having insufficient funds.
Boardman receives 21.59% of the property taxes collected in the township, according to the Mahoning County auditor’s website. Losing that income means a loss of between $250,000 and $300,000 annually, Loree said.
“Without some sort of new money coming in, I have to reflect that in the budgetary process, and it could impact operations, whether that means I’m paving less roads, buying less equipment or not hiring as many people,” he said.
While people assert that township trustees should stop owners like Kohan that don’t pay their property taxes from purchasing properties such as Southern Park Mall, Loree pointed out that the government has no role in the exchange of private property.
“We can’t pick and choose who buys what,” he said. “In this country, property rights have been protected since its founding.” Government’s responsibilities are to make sure things are safe, function and “find a plan for when they don’t work out,” he added.
The township similarly has no role in determining what businesses come into the township. “I cannot force a Cheesecake Factory into Boardman,” he said.
The township also reached out to Kohan Retail a few weeks ago – with no response yet – to provide a point of contact for the Energy Special Improvement District created 10 years ago to provide funding for energy-related improvements to the mall property.
“They’ve not sent us their representation, so we haven’t had a meeting. But they’re also not paying into the ESID,” Loree said. “The bond holders are calling the township, asking for the money. We don’t have it because we haven’t collected it through the mall, so we can’t complete our ESID board meetings and do any work with that until they send us a member.”
Should the mall go under, the property is commercially zoned, there are strong commercial plazas to its left and right and it has utilities, access to major highways and great infrastructure, Loree said.
“I don’t think it sits vacant for very long,” he predicted. Potential reuses of the property include light manufacturing or redevelopment as a lifestyle center, with residential space above and commercial and retail space on the bottom.
Kohan Retail did not respond to a request to comment Wednesday afternoon.
Loree said the Rotary meeting represented the first time he had been invited to speak outside Boardman about the community’s issues, which he said was important because the township isn’t an island.
“We’re a part of Mahoning County, so as everybody in Mahoning County does well, so does Boardman,” he remarked. “I love being able to go out and talk to the people and talk about some of the things that we’re doing in Boardman Township, in hopes that it may help other communities, and just exchange ideas to figure out ways to make these things better.”
Loree also pointed to recent developments in the township, including the soon to be completed stormwater park on the site of the former Market Street Elementary School. The park will feature green space, wetland and a one-third-mile trail. “We took something that was going to be basically a brownfield and turned it into a greenfield,” he said.
The township also was awarded a $47 million flood mitigation grant last year by the Federal Emergency Management Administration to address flooding in the township. The project, which probably is another couple years from getting underway, will include major stormwater infrastructure improvements in the Cranberry Run corridor.
“We’re looking at building some conduit along Glenwood [Avenue] that will convey water and divert it from going through the neighborhoods to an area that can be an expanded flood plain, to slow the water down, hold it back and get it slowly into Mill Creek Park,” Loree said.
“We’ll be doing some retrofitting and new stormwater infrastructure in those neighborhoods, acquiring some property to apply some additional retention and greening up some space,” he continued. “So it’s about five or six different projects within the whole grant. And what’s exciting about it is it’s a change that will benefit Boardman indefinitely in the future.”
Pictured at top: Jason Loree, Boardman Township administrator, speaks during Wednesday’s meeting.