Is buying Midway Mall a risk worth taking?

What is the Lorain County Port Authority's plan for the Midway Mall? We don't know and neither, it seems, does the Port Authority or the county commissioners, who on Tuesday voted 2-1 to preapprove a $13.9 million loan to the Port Authority to buy the mall. It's not a done deal. The decision to preapprove the loan was described as necessary so the Port Authority could continue to negotiate purchasing the beleaguered retail complex while having time to complete its due diligence on issues such as environmental concerns. The apparent lack of a plan strikes us as an extraordinarily risky approach to committing so much taxpayer money to redeveloping the mall. The loan would be paid out of the county's general fund, and the Port Authority would have 10 years to repay it. Port Authority Director Jim Miller told us the commissioners' vote Tuesday was comparable to getting a loan preapproved by a bank before making an offer on a house. That doesn't mean you're going to buy the house, just that you have financing in place to do so if everything works out. Perhaps, but when you buy a house, you typically know what you're going to do with it. Maybe you're going to live in it or tear it down or rent it out. Again, that doesn't appear to be the case here. Commissioner Dave Moore, a Republican and the chief cheerleader for the Port Authority buying the mall, told us that "everything was on the table," including possibly turning part of the mall into a convention center. In the past year, the commissioners have twice asked voters to hike the county's bed tax to cover the cost of such a center, but voters wisely rejected it both times. We didn't support the project, either, because we weren't convinced that a convention center located between existing convention facilities in Cleveland and Sandusky was a viable enterprise. Miller told us that the Port Authority had plans to repay the money if it takes the loan, including possibly by selling off chunks of the mall to developers, although he declined to get into specifics. None of this is to say that the mall, which has declined both physically and as a center of commerce in recent years, isn't in desperate need of redevelopment, but Midway Mall is hardly the only mall to struggle with adapting to changing shopping habits. The desire to redevelop it is strong, at least in the minds of some public officials, which is why Elyria Mayor Frank Whitfield has been pursuing the Cleveland Clinic as a possible anchor to what he's described as a "Health and Wellness and Industrial Innovation" center. Part of the problem with redevelopment efforts is persuading the private owners of different parts of the mall to get on the same page when it comes to the mall's future, outgoing Commissioner Matt Lundy, a Democrat who joined Moore in supporting the loan, told us. (Commissioner-Elect Jeff Riddell, a Republican, told us he didn't have enough information to comment on whether he'd support it once he takes office.) Lundy said, "I don't see a path forward for the mall unless it's under one-party control." Lundy, who will become Elyria's safety-service director in January, told us that Whitfield and other city officials had met with the commissioners this year to discuss the topic. That's certainly an improvement in communications since the spring, when the commissioners blindsided the city with their plan to turn part of the mall into a convention center just weeks before the May primary when the bed tax increase was last on the ballot. Whitfield told us Elyria remained in discussions with the clinic, but until the question of whether the county is going to buy the mall is settled, "everything's kind of in limbo." "It's about having a vision and having the right people at the table," he said. Commissioner Michelle Hung, a Republican and the lone no vote on the loan, told us she didn't think that the county should be getting into property redevelopment "schemes" and that the Port Authority should have sought private financing. Miller told us he didn't look for private financing because he wasn't sure such funding would be easy or cheap to come by. Banks, he said, want to earn a profit from loans, while the county wants to see the mall redeveloped. Hung also said she would rather the money be devoted to other projects, such as replacing the aging and crumbling county jail. It's a legitimate concern. If the deal goes through that would mean $13.9 million less with which to operate county government in the years to come. Could the Port Authority come up with a viable plan to turn around the mall's fortunes? Maybe, but voters have made clear their skepticism about a convention center there, and the authority has no business committing millions of taxpayer dollars to any plan before it's made public and thoroughly debated.