YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The black-tiled facade at the corner of Lane and Himrod avenues on the city’s east side that once heralded the entrance to a proposed $18 million development by Joseph Co. International stands stripped of the company’s name.
Gone also are signs erected on the nearly 22-acre site that advertised Chill Can, as the city purges any reference to the failed project.
As of Aug. 27, the city holds title to the site, according to records filed with the Mahoning County Auditor’s office. In July, a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court ordered that the property on the east side be turned over to the city, ending a legal battle that spanned more than four years.
City officials have not announced their intentions for the site. Calls to the city’s economic development director and Mayor Jamael Tito Brown were not returned in time for this posting.
Jason Small, deputy law director, said the property’s transfer to the city ends all of the legal matters associated with the Chill Can site.
“The property that was subject to the sheriff’s sale is now ours,” Small said, adding that he is not privy to any future plans for the land.
He added that the transaction was complicated because of the number of lots involved in the sale. “There were about 87 parcels,” he said, noting that the legal process and volume of paperwork took months to clear up before the land could be transferred into city hands.
Judge John M. Durkin on July 2 filed a court order that approved the city’s bid of $1,379,580 for the land and three vacant buildings at the site. The land was placed into a sheriff’s sale in February, and the city emerged as the highest – and only – bidder for the property.
Case Closed
The city’s acquisition brings to a close an ordeal that began almost nine years ago. In October 2016, Irvine, Calif.-based Joseph Co. International and its chairman, Mitchell Joseph, announced plans to construct an $18 million research and manufacturing campus that would commercialize self-chilling technology for the beverage industry and other sectors.
The company’s development arm, M.J. Joseph Development Co., acquired parcels bordered by Oak Street to the north, Himrod Avenue to the south, the Himrod Expressway to the west and Fruit Street to the east. The land was the original site of Starr Bottling Co., Mitchell Joseph’s grandfather’s beverage company during the mid-20th century.
The company promised to create 236 jobs by August 2021 but never reported more than two employees. It constructed three buildings at the site, just one of which has a poured concrete floor.
In return for the company’s investment and promised new jobs, the city in 2017 awarded M.J. Joseph Co. a $1.5 million wastewater development grant to help the project and provided the company with a 75% abatement on real estate taxes over a 10-year period.
The city also spent more than $700,000 to demolish existing homes that stood in the neighborhood, remediate some of the environmental issues and pay relocation expenses for residents who lived there.
Four years into the project, work at the site came to a halt as the developer continued to miss deadlines to complete the campus.
Anticipating court action from the city, M.J. Joseph filed a complaint in May 2021, alleging the city did not have the authority to collect monetary damages nor was entitled to the land. The city countersued for $2.8 million, demanding a refund of its development grant, relocation and acquisition expenses and computed lost income tax revenue.
MS Consultants filed its complaint in January 2023, seeking $322,907.80 from M.J. Joseph, arguing it was not paid for work it completed at the project site. After a court ruled against M.J. Joseph, MS Consultants filed a separate foreclosure action, which the city joined.
M.J. Joseph’s attorneys then withdrew their representation, and in May 2024 the court closed out the city’s litigation against the developer, as the city deemed it unlikely it would ever collect its money. MS Consultants had earlier voluntarily dismissed its case against the company.
M.J. Joseph responded by walking away from the project entirely. The company’s phone lines in California are disconnected, and its website is no longer active.