April 5, 2021 1:59 PM
by: Stan Bullard, Senior Reporter
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A Mentor mystery has been solved. The widely reported "unidentified national specialty retailer" that won approvals from the suburb for a store at 9470 Mentor Ave. is Trader Joe's, based at Monrovia, Calif.
A request for comment on an Ohio Liquor Permit request for Trader Joe's at that address is included on the Monday, April 5, Mentor City Council agenda.
Kenya Friend-Daniel, a Trader Joe's spokeswoman, confirmed the company's interest in the store.
"We are very interested in bringing a store to Mentor and are taking the necessary steps to make it happen," Friend-Daniel wrote in an email. "There are a number of things that need to happen before the store is confirmed." She said it is too early to forecast an opening date.
Construction crews are fencing the site and preparing to demolish the Sawyer House, a stone Western Reserve-style farmhouse. It has stood at that location since 1843. Over the years it also served as offices and, more recently, a succession of restaurants.
For more than a year, city officials have reviewed plans, and then last fall approved them, for a nearly 14,000-square-foot specialty grocer to build on the site without spilling the name, at the company's request.
The 2.7-acre site of Sawyer House was sold to ABC Mentor LLC, which lists to the address of Fiorilli Construction Inc., a Medina-based construction general contractor. Carmen Fiorilli. Fiorilli also formed ABC Mentor, according to state incorporation records. He declined comment in a text on Monday.
ABC Mentor on March 1 paid $1.1 million for the site, according to the Lake County auditor's office.
Patrick Dowd, a vice president at Sequoia Realty Inc. of Mentor who handled the sale for 7338 Mentor LLC, declined to comment on the prospective operator at the site being Trader Joe's.
However, Dowd did say the property was originally listed for $1.3 million and he had it under contract, more than a year ago, for less than two weeks.
Kevin Malecek, Mentor director of economic development and international trade, commented on Trader Joe's only after he was satisfied that the retailer confirmed the pending plan.
"For many years, members of the Mentor City Council, administration, and municipal economic development officials have worked to attract a specialty grocer like Trader Joe's to our community," he wrote in an email April 5. "Its consideration of a site in Mentor provides further evidence of the city's stature as a premier consumer economy in Greater Cleveland and that Mentor officials work tirelessly to meet the desires of the city's residents."
Trader Joe's is owned by families that are part owners of Aldi Nord of Essen, Germany. However, it is separately held from Aldi U.S. stores.