Interior plans for proposed Elyria esports center are fully approved

After years of uncertainty, work inside a proposed multimillion-dollar esports facility in downtown Elyria could finally be underway soon. In early 2022, developer Kevin Flanigan had presented a massive plan to renovate and reinvent the former Dixon and Robinson buildings on Broad Street into Forge 417, an imagined esports facility and arena. At the time, Flanigan had said the project would be complete in 2023 and a multilevel apartment facility on the same block would follow the next year. Over three years later the project still has not come to fruition, but Mayor Kevin Brubaker said progress could finally be coming for 417 Broad St. Brubaker said that Elyria Block Development LLC, owned by Flanigan, had received "full approval" for all the interior renovation work it needed to remake the facility. "Back in February they submitted their complete interior design plans, they paid the $60,000 plus for the design reviews (and) there were some things that came back that they needed," Brubaker said. "I am happy to say that they have received full plan approval, so now it's just a matter of them getting a contractor." The contractor who does the work will need to pull permits to carry out some of the work, but the plans themselves are now ready to go. Flanigan did not return a request for comment Thursday night. Brubaker said that residents have regularly asked questions about what was happening — or rather, not happening — at 417 Broad St.t and he was happy to have news of progress. Residents could see some of that progress for themselves this month, as many of the windows on the building are being replaced with plywood. The work to replace the old windows is being funded in part by a $3.4 million tax credit the state awarded to Elyria Block Development through the Department of Development's Transformational Mixed-Use Development Program. "There is movement there and we expect to see a lot more things happening, particularly since the weather has changed now," Brubaker said. "So that is really exciting." In the plans made public by Flanigan in 2022, he said that the project would renovate 67,000 square feet of the buildings that were originally built in the late 1800s. The new esports facility was planned to have a 200-plus seat arena along with office and studio space on the second floor. Flanigan also announced the planned construction of a 76,000-square-foot residential building with a wine bar on the ground level and apartments above. In all, the project was projected to cost just shy of $36 million. Brubaker said that such a large project beginning construction would serve as a boon to other development work in downtown Elyria such as the Shoppes on Broad retail property being opened by developer Dan Martin at 374 Broad St. "We have a lot of movement downtown," Brubaker said. "We've had a couple new businesses open on the east side of Broad Street, we have businesses opening on Middle Avenue between Broad and Second Street… You have all that and then you throw in the esports center and the work going on there, I think that will be the anchor for all of this. With that as the anchor, I think when it starts to move we are going to see a lot more movement downtown." Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.