Politics & Government

EPA Grant To Improve Drainage At Great Lakes Mall

The city of Mentor and Great Lakes Mall hope a grant from the U.S. EPA will make it less wet in Mentor

A grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will provide $350,000 to improve the drainage in Mentor.

The money will fund work designed to improve water quality within the Newell Creek watershed that flows into the Chagrin River and Lake Erie.

The project will focus on the 's property.

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In the mall's parking lot, impervious surface areas will be replaced with pervious concrete next to 32 existing stormwater catch basins in the mall's parking lot.

"This change alone will allow stormwater from 50 percent of the parking lot to infiltrate into the ground rather than enter the storm sewer system and prompt flooding," said U.S. Congressman Steven LaTourette in a statement.

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LaTourette noted that all the stormwater from the catch basins and a series of pipes is now funneled into a 72-inch pipe, causing flooding in an adjacent apartment complex and Eleanor Garfield Park.

Grant funds will also be used to build a "Pervious Promenade" in the mall parking lot near the entrance to the food court. The Promenade is intended to be a pleasant walkway where visitors can see new approaches that are more sympathetic to nature rather than the conventional asphalt treatments.

The proposal for the Great Lakes Mall site was developed by the city of Mentor and the Simon Property Group, owners of the Great Lakes Mall. The grant proposal was submitted by the Chagrin River Watershed Partners, a nonprofit group that works with communities in a four county area within northeast Ohio.

The project grew out of an earlier feasibility study that the City of Mentor developed after receiving a $15,000 grant from the Lake Erie Protection Fund, administrated by the Ohio Lake Erie Commission - a fund supported by the voluntary contribution of Ohioans who purchase the “Erie… Our Great Lake” license plate.

Mentor was one of only five award recipients through the Lake Erie Protection Fund by the state of Ohio this year.

"We are extremely pleased that our initial study was able to support a much larger grant award through the federally sponsored Great Lakes Restoration Initiative," said Kenneth Filipiak, the city manager of Mentor.

The EPA grant is part of a larger, $770,250 grant that is going to the Chagrin River Watershed Partners Inc.

The remainder of the grant will fund a stormwater management improvement project involving the communities of Eastlake and Willoughby.


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