LAKEWOOD – Trustee Ellen Barnes is still waiting for information about the Chautauqua Mall.

Barnes noted at Monday’s Board of Trustees meeting that she will start gathering information on how the village can move forward, and also propose a timeline for a possible rezoning of the mall.

In January, Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel gave an update to Village Board members regarding the status of the mall, and said the county is in no position to move forward with a proposal that would have redeveloped part of the mall into professional office space for county offices.

In December 2024, county lawmakers heard a presentation by Summit Properties, mall owners, about professional space development at the mall, located at 318 E. Fairmount Ave.

Proposed departments included Temporary Assistance/Medicaid, Probation, Department of Motor Vehicles, Child Welfare, the Department of Health and Human Services Administration, Nursing and Environmental Health, and the Legal Department.

“So we’re right now, we (the county) are just looking at opportunities, looking at options. Nothing has been formatted, nothing is concrete,” Wendel said in January.

Trustee Ben Troche has talked with county officials about the mall and they told him, he said, to move forward with what’s best for the village.

“So it’s one of those things that we are kind of in this limbo hold, waiting for the county to make their decision if they’re going to go forward or not,” Barnes said.

Troche said county officials are considering a lot of options, including what’s best for the county.

Wendel noted also in January that mall owners Summit Properties presented a plan with “some pictures and renderings, (and) no details as far as numbers, cost, and finance.”

“It’s still open. We’re still looking for more to come,” Wendel said in January.

In November 2024, Lakewood Trustees heard a presentation by Brian Kulpa, an architect and urban planner with Imagine Solutions of Amherst.

Barnes said then, village officials wanted to see what can be done with the mall since many retailers have left. She added that officials asked Kulpa for preliminary ideas on how else the property can be utilized and how to maybe repurpose it.

“The village has lost a lot,” Barnes told board members in November 2024.

In 2023, the mall got a break on the property’s tax assessment. Chautauqua Mall Realty Holding LLC, filed an Article 7 case in state Supreme Court seeking a reduction in the mall’s property valuation from $6 million to $670,000. After hearing arguments in the proceeding, state Supreme Court Justice Grace Hanlon ruled that the mall’s new assessment be decreased to $4,020,000 through 2026.

The 2023 filing came after the town of Busti, village of Lakewood, Chautauqua County and the Southwestern Central School District had to reimburse the mall a percentage of taxes paid in 2020, 2021 and 2022 after the mall’s taxable assessment was decreased late in 2022. Court records show that in 2020 the mall’s assessment was $9,260,000, and that amount was reduced to $5,772,000. In 2021 the assessment was $9,260,000, and it was reduced to $5,592,000, and in 2022 the assessment was $9,260,000, and it has been reduced to $4,965,000. The 2023 tax assessment from the Busti tax assessor was $6 million — an amount mall officials said was too high even though the mall was purchased for $6 million in September 2022.