YOUNGSTOWN – The sheriff’s sale for the former Chill-Can plant site, set for Monday, has been canceled with Youngstown planning to file a court motion asking that the Mahoning County auditor’s appraised value for the property be used for a later sale, a city official said.

Because three appraisals of the 21-acre property on the city’s East Side couldn’t determine its value, the sale can’t go ahead as scheduled, said Lou D’Apolito, a city deputy law director who’s been deeply involved in the Chill-Can litigation.

The appraisers wrote that 26 of the 86 parcels on the site are owned by the city and two are owned by Scott Berger, who used to work for M.J. Joseph Development Corp., the Chill-Can’s parent company. Also, the city owns additional parcels surrounding the location.

“Without an appraisal, they can’t go ahead with the sale,” D’Apolito said. “We’ve prepared a (court) motion asking to use the auditor’s value as the price.”

The auditor’s office appraises the Chill-Can property at about $2 million.

The city plans to file a motion as early as next week with Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to compel the sheriff to set the opening bid at the auditor’s appraised price, D’Apolito said.

The opening bid for the property would be sold for two-thirds that price if the motion is granted, he said.

The city is definitely interested in buying the property for future development, D’Apolito said.

Durkin ruled Aug. 22 in favor of Youngstown and MS Consultants Inc., the two lead plaintiffs in the foreclosure case against M.J. Joseph, which walked away from the undeveloped property.

The entire process of filing the motion, having Durkin rule on it and then schedule the sheriff’s sale will take a while, D’Apolito said.

“We’re a ways away from that sale,” D’Apolito said. “That’s going to take some time.”

Durkin ruled M.J. Joseph owes $1.5 million to Youngstown plus 3% interest from Nov. 21, 2022, and $322,908 to MS plus 18% interest since Oct. 5, 2018, as well as $2,150 to MS and $500 to the city in court costs.

M.J. Joseph also was ordered to pay the county treasurer for delinquent taxes, assessments, interest and penalties. M.J. Joseph owes $22,814 in delinquent taxes to the county, and hasn’t paid the $20,456 it owes this year, according to the auditor’s website.

The city plans to use the $1.5 million it is owed – in addition to the fact it owns numerous properties in and around the Chill-Can site – in its effort to purchase the Chill-Can site, D’Apolito said.

At one time, the proposed Chill-Can plant was expected to lead an economic revival of the city’s lower East Side, but the project never materialized.

The city also won by default a $733,481 court sanction – $414,948 the city spent on acquiring 15 properties bought for the failed project, which included relocation expenses, and $318,533 in demolition and abatement costs.

The money owed to MS Consultants is for unpaid design work on the supposed project.

The unpaid property taxes have to be paid from the sale of the property. But if the city doesn’t exceed that and the $1.5 million it is owed, MS would get nothing.

There’s also a valid $2.58 million default judgment from Richard A. Briskey, a Sunbury businessman, against Mitchell Joseph, the head of M.J. Joseph, as well as that company and three other affiliated businesses in a breach-of-contract lawsuit. Durkin ruled that Briskey’s interests are behind the city and MS.

Joseph, who also owned M.J. Joseph’s sister companies, claimed when the project broke ground in November 2016 that the facility would cost about $18.8 million and be in full operation by 2018 to produce the world’s only self-chilling beverage can.

M.J. Joseph was required under an agreement with the city to construct four buildings and create 237 jobs by Aug. 31. 2021.

There are three unfinished buildings at the undeveloped site.

Mitchell Joseph filed May 10 for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s Central Division of California with his wife, Susan Jo Joseph, and Joseph Co. International Inc. A judge dismissed the case July 11.

The company exists only on paper with Mitchell Joseph unable to be reached for comment.

Since Brian Kopp and Justin Markota, M.J. Joseph’s company’s former attorneys, filed requests Sept. 11, 2023, to withdraw from three M.J. lawsuits, likely over nonpayment of fees, the company never hired new legal counsel and ignored court deadlines and hearings. That resulted in the default judgments in favor of the city and MS Consultants on money owed by the company and the foreclosure decision.

The foreclosure case was initiated by MS Consultants Inc. on July 12, 2023, to seize M.J. Joseph’s property after winning a lower court case on a breach-of-contract lawsuit.

The 7th District Court of Appeals on Feb. 20 dismissed M.J. Joseph’s appeal of Judge Maureen Sweeney’s March 20, 2023, ruling that the company breached a contract for MS to do design work on the supposed project and owed $322,908.

M.J. Joseph ignored that appeal, leading to its dismissal.

Sweeney on May 8 also closed Youngstown’s case against M.J. Joseph after awarding the city $2.23 million in sanctions and damages. Of that amount, $1.5 million is water and wastewater grants given the company by the city and the rest is the $733,481 sanction.

Even though the city was awarded sanctions, it is not pursuing them because of M.J. Joseph’s inability to pay, D’Apolito said.

Youngstown filed a $2.8 million lawsuit June 17, 2021, contending M.J. Joseph failed to live up to its promises to develop the site.

In a March 29, 2021, certified letter, the city informed Joseph he had 60 days to construct a number of buildings and hire about 150 workers or it would file a lawsuit.

Knowing the city’s lawsuit was coming, M.J. Joseph and Joseph Manufacturing Co. Inc., a sister company, filed a May 24, 2021, lawsuit against Youngstown seeking to stop it from reclaiming the $1.5 million in grants and contested the city’s legal rights to money, property and buildings.