YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – City Council will consider an ordinance at its Wednesday meeting to move forward on the acquisition of nearly 22 acres that comprise the site of the failed Chill Can project.

It’s among the final procedural actions required so the city can take title to the property, which consists of 86 separate parcels, said Jason Small, the city’s deputy law director. 

“Under the [Ohio] statute, City Council just needs to accept the property,” he said. The city, he noted, should take title to the land and three vacant buildings at the site shortly after City Council votes Wednesday. All that remains are some legal filings in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court before the city is able to take full ownership of the property.

“Those are in the process of being drafted,” Small said.

The city emerged as the successful – and only – bidder of the Chill Can site during a sheriff’s sale in February. The site had moved into foreclosure after MS Consultants Inc., a Columbus-based architectural and engineering firm, successfully sued developer M.J. Joseph Development Co. for $322,907.54 for work it did on the project but was never paid for. The city – which also won a judgment for $1.5 million against M.J. Joseph, plus another $733,480.80 in sanctions – joined the foreclosure suit and had a priority claim on the site. 

The city submitted a credit bid of $1,379,580 during the Feb. 18 auction and purchased the property.

Yet it has taken four months to reach a point where the city is now able to claim title to the property, Small said, since the acquisition process was complicated by the large number of separate parcels at the site. “That’s pretty much the sole reason,” he said.

The ordinance before City Council states that it is in the public interest for the city to acquire title to the tax-delinquent land for the purpose of “redeveloping the property or otherwise rendering it suitable for productive, tax-paying use.”

City Council is expected to approve the ordinance.

Small said he is not aware of any potential tenant, developer or end user interested in the land. 

End of an Ordeal

The city’s acquisition would bring to a close an ordeal that began almost nine years ago. In October 2016, California-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 on the East Side that is 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.

Yet 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 ultimately 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.

From 2021 through November 2024, the litigation has cost the city $233,873.50 in legal fees to its outside legal counsel, Manchester Newman & Bennett, according to city finance department records.

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.