As Meijer continues to spar with Boardman officials over a gas station the grocery store chain wants nearby its proposed store in the township, the company cooled its plans for a store at the Eastwood Mall Complex, according to a Cafaro Company spokesman.

Meanwhile, Meijer’s proposed store in Austintown has all of the zoning paperwork in place except for stormwater approval.

BOARDMAN

The township’s zoning commission earlier this week denied Meijer’s proposal for a gas station. The chain requested a zoning change for two pieces of land on Lockwood Boulevard, across the street from where the store will go on U.S. Route 224.

Krista Beniston, zoning and development director, said Meijer applied to change the two parcels, one of which is a rental property zoned for business and the other residential, to commercial for the proposed gas station.

“They were very preliminary plans,” Beniston said.

Although the zoning commission shot down the zoning change, Beniston said the vote was a recommendation, and trustees will have the final say sometime in February.

Main access for the gas station was shown to be off Lockwood Boulevard and Tippecanoe Road, she said, with the gas station on the west side of Lockwood.

The company anticipates investing about $20 million to build a 159,000-square-foot store, which will employ about 250 people. Construction is expected to begin this year, with the store opening in 2021.

AUSTINTOWN

Austintown Zoning Inspector Darren Crivelli said when the conditional use permit for the Austintown Meijer project was approved in October 2016, Meijer officials told the township the store would be roughly 195,000 square feet and would be a prototype for a “superstore.”

Crivelli said all zoning paperwork is completed, except for a stormwater management plan for the store on Mahoning Avenue at the former Fitch High School / Austintown Middle School building and the former Austintown library, all of which have been demolished.

When the project was proposed, Meijer told the township it was aiming for a late spring 2021 opening.

HOWLAND

Dan Morgan, zoning inspector for the township, said the last contact he had with Meijer officials was in September. It was then Morgan said he was told the project was on hold, but with no explanation.

Joe Bell, spokesman for the Cafaro Company, which owns and operates Howland Commons, where the store would be located, said the company was “gung-ho” on the store at the former Kmart, but “then got a little scared when it saw what happened with GM, got a little skittish and then said, ‘let’s slow walk this one here.’ ”

Bell said Cafaro officials have stayed in contact with Meijer and have been making good progress.

“We spent a great deal of time allaying their fears that the economy is not good, that this is a good consumer market, a place where they will be most welcomed, and they seem to understand that now,” Bell said, adding that things are moving in the right direction.

It was more than a year ago when Bell confirmed Cafaro Company had a deal with the Michigan-based retailer.

Plans for the nearly 160,000-square-foot store in Howland are to tear down the existing structure and build new at the old Kmart. There also are plans for a nearly 3,400-square-foot gasoline station / convenience store.

The township’s board of zoning appeals approved five variances Meijer requested for signs, but denied one that would have allowed the store to use an electronic sign to broadcast gas prices.

A board member at the time called it a “a slippery slope” that may lead other retailers to request electronic messaging signs, which are not allowed according to the Howland Township Zoning Code.

Meijer operates more than 240 supercenters and grocery stores in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

Reporters Ashley Fox, Allie Vugrincic and Ron Selak Jr. contributed to this story.