Staff photo / Dan Pompili The former Penn-Ohio truck stop closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since become dilapidated. Trustees and others in the township agree that demolishing the building is the top priority for cleaning up the otherwise economically stable corridor. The owner, Surinder Cheema of New York, says he is in the process of selling it to someone who will likely build a brand new truck stop there.

BEAVER TOWNSHIP — The state Route 7 corridor south of Boardman is a known entity and is unlikely to change much, but that doesn’t mean locals don’t want it to improve.

That section of Market Street, from Western Reserve Road heading toward North Lima, is largely defined by its proximity to the Ohio Turnpike entrance and exit ramps. It is mostly zoned for commercial use, featuring truck stops, motels, health care facilities and nursing homes, some small independently owned shops, and a restaurant or two.

Township officials say the corridor could use a little tidying, but they do not expect any great departure from its composition and character.

“There’s not going to be anything all that different, really,” said Beaver Township Trustee Pamela Simmons. “Getting it cleaned up is the first thing for us.”

Cleaning up is a necessity, to be sure. While a new Love’s truck stop and Speedway gas station — the most recent additions — have brought a shine to previously empty space, some stretches are still marked by empty sign frames on rusty posts, vacant lots, closed businesses like the former Tiffany’s strip club, and of course the old Penn-Ohio truck stop right across from Love’s.

But Simmons and other township officials have reasons for optimism.

The Vindicator found that most of those blighted spots are on the way to being brighter spots and there is even hope for the Penn-Ohio property, one way or another.

The businesses that already line the corridor — some of them hidden gems — are prospering, and some new enterprises are expected soon. The township also has great development potential, they say.

OUT WITH THE OLD

Everyone The Vindicator spoke with agreed the main problem along Market Street in Beaver Township is the former Penn-Ohio truck stop.

Owner Surinder Cheema — DBA Lucky Enterprises of Ohio, based in Hudson, New York — said the truck stop closed some time during the COVID-19 pandemic. It never reopened and has become dilapidated. The air-conditioning unit was ripped off the top of the building during a windstorm two years ago, and the roof has since caved in.

“It’s been a vacant property, and people like to park their trucks there, so trying to get it condemned and torn down,” Tabor said. “We’ve had some complaints, so it’s just us as the trustees trying to get the township cleaned up.”

Zoning Inspector Lindy Mitchell said the property constitutes a legal nuisance and her office has sent Cheema three zoning violation notices. By law, she said, the matter now will be turned over to the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office.

She said the township also is working with the Mahoning County Health Department to address the issue.

Simmons said the property has been an ongoing saga in the zoning office.

“People come into the zoning office all the time with ideas and projects and we always think ‘this is going to be the one, this will fix the problem’ and some way or another it always falls through,” she said.

Tabor said most of the proposals have something to do with serving truck and turnpike traffic.

“When people look at property, they want to put restaurants, some want to put truck washes, I guess it just depends on who buys the property,” he said.

Cheema said he is aware that the property is a problem and he wants to be relieved of the burden.

He said he has worked with the county, that the building required multiple inspections, and asbestos will have to be removed from it before it can be demolished.

“Someone may buy it,” he said. “And I think this is the best way to get it done.”

Cheema said a deal is likely in the works to sell it, but declined to say who the prospective buyer is. Cheema said either he or the new owner will take the building down. He said the new owner will likely turn the property into a new truck stop.

IN WITH SOMETHING NEW

While the township works and waits for something to happen at the old truck stop, others are showing interest and investing in the corridor.

Mitchell said Southern Tire Mart is expected to build a 12,000-square-foot facility behind the Pilot truck stop, providing tires and tire service for truckers.

“We’re going through the plans right now, waiting for approval from Mahoning County Engineer’s Office and the Mahoning County Soil and Water District, and from our local fire department, then we can issue a permit,” she said.

The old strip club, too, soon will have a new lease on life. Ben Dickey, a businessman from Lisbon, bought the property last year with plans to build a truck wash, something the area lacks.

That would go behind the old Tiffany’s building, though. As for the building itself, Dickey has aims to make it a climate-controlled storage facility.

“I think we’re getting close with the township on a usage approval and I think that would be a very good purpose for that building,” he said.

Dickey said he sees a great deal of potential along the whole corridor, mostly with an eye toward the transportation and warehousing industries.

“There’s a lot of good flat land there, and that reduces the costs of developing the property,” he said.

Dickey said many of the other businesspeople he knows have mentioned their interest in opening up enterprises there.

“I think Beaver Township could get some nice development in the next couple of years,” he said.

Tabor said there has been no shortage of interest.

“Amazon called a few years ago about some property off Calla Road, for a distribution center,” he said. “Someone mentioned the possibility of a Cracker Barrel.”

Right now much of it is speculation, but Tabor sees plenty of potential. Like Dickey, he believes most businesses that come to the corridor will focus on better serving turnpike traffic.

“This is a hub between New York, Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh; all the freeways come together in this area,” he said.

Tabor also sees the value to local and regional transportation enterprises.

“With the turnpike there, you can come into that first gate and it’s free,” he said. “That whole corridor could be a benefit to a large trucking company, say out of Pennsylvania, wanting to take advantage of the cheaper taxes in Ohio.”

He said he hopes to see more restaurants, and perhaps even a strip mall or two with quality retail shops.

Tabor also recognizes the increased local traffic and hopes some more retail and restaurant business might serve locals and bolster the existing local businesses.

“The traffic through there, the increase has been at least double in just the past few years,” he said.

A HIDDEN GEM

Laurie Hoefert, for one, certainly hopes Tabor is right.

Hoefert owns and runs Terrytown Antique and Gift Shop, tucked right in next to Steamer’s Stonewall Tavern.

The building, a replica of Frontier Town in DisneyLand, originally opened in 1955 as a museum. The model train engine that used to sit out front now sits in the legendary Anaheim, California, theme park.

Hoefert’s mother-in-law opened Terrytown in 1964. The store runs the entire length of the building, even the part that says “Barber Shop.”

The store carries everything from antique plates to classic toy soldiers and nesting dolls, miniature Santas, embossed moleskine notebooks with brass locks, and almost anything else one can imagine in such a store. And don’t forget the vintage cash registers that used to be in downtown Youngstown banks and department stores.

Hoefert, who has run the store since her husband died four years ago, said there is still plenty of life along the corridor, though there’s not as much foot traffic as there used to be in the days of Smaldino’s restaurant. It also hurt when the school was moved to state Route 46, far from the business sector.

“A lot of people come for Christmas gifts, and we have lots of regulars,” she said. “This is a meeting place off the turnpike. They go to lunch next door and then come walk through here.”

Still, she sees men lined up outside Chalet Premier liquor store every Tuesday at about 5 a.m., waiting for their chance to buy the specialty whiskeys, bourbons, and scotches the store is known for acquiring. And she closes her doors at 5 p.m. because the Steamer’s dinner crowd usually fills up her parking lot, not that she’s complaining.

Hoefert said that while she would like to see some more industrial development, and certainly cannot wait for the Penn-Ohio truck stop to be razed, she would be happy just to see one or two more nice restaurants nearby to bring people back to the immediate area during regular business hours.

“It’s slowly building out, and that was always the hope, that it would build out from Boardman,” she said. “The dive bars are gone, so that’s good. And they really haven’t let anything bad come in.”

The sketchy massage parlor in the plaza is gone too, she said.

Hoefert joyfully refers customers to Farmer Dave’s, a statue shop just up the road, where the owner acquires unique handmade statues from several states; and to the True Value Hardware store downtown, where there are also three floors of novelty items like trains and Ohio State and Cleveland sports goods and memorabilia.