Special to the Tribune Chronicle This is a rendering of the Enterprise Park site near the Eastwood Mall in Niles that Mercy Health had been considering for a new St. Joseph Warren Hospital. The Cafaro Company, which owns the mall complex, still plans to prepare the site for development even though Mercy Health has put its proposal on hold because of the “economic uncertainty” of the General Motors Lordstown plant.

WARREN — The decision by Mercy Health to pause a proposed $250 million hospital near the Eastwood Mall has not stopped the property’s owner from continuing the permitting process to ready the land for development.

Joe Bell, spokesman for the Cafaro Company, which owns the land, said the company has no intention now of withdrawing its request from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to mitigate 16 acres of wetlands to develop the location known as Enterprise Park.

His comment comes on the heals of an announcement by the health care provider to employees it is indefinitely putting on hold plans for a new facility at the park because of the “economic uncertainty” of the General Motors plant in Lordstown, which will stop production in March.

The permit process “continues,” Bell said Tuesday. “We’re just in the beginning of that right now. The Ohio EPA just closed its comment period to the public and will be going through the comments and coming back to us for clarification or response to those comments.”

“The state of the economy will become much clearer in the coming months as we continue,” Bell said. “The regulating process will take several months. That, in and of itself, gives people time to digest what is going on.”

The full process, Bell said, is expected to take several months, but he expects word from the state sometime in the first quarter of 2019.

The plan in place for Enterprise Park is “highly flexible” and “could be modified by size or configuration or types of tenants there,” Bell said.

“We always said Enterprise Park is capable of handling any number or combination of businesses. The preferable thing right now is for a hospital … we’re optimistic when all is said and done, things will proceed as foreseen,” Bell said.

The building site has been publicly opposed by those who want to protect the wetlands on which a portion of the complex would be built. Backers of the project cite the economic and educational opportunities a new complex would bring to the Valley.

The possibility Mercy Health would build a new five- to six-floor St. Joseph Warren Hospital was made public earlier this month. Previously, Mercy Health said it started looking for sites for expansion several months ago, and Enterprise Park was deemed a potential location for a new facility.

Jonathon Fauvie, spokesman for Mercy Health, said the health care provider, however, had not committed to building at the park.

He said the work put on hold includes any feasibility studies, scope of service review or determination on the size of the facility. Enterprise Park, he said, “was solely an opportunity to place services, whether that means primary care or urgent care or the possibility of a new hospital.”

“We are waiting to see how things shake out, if you will,” Fauvie said. “We need to be sensitive to and mindful of the changing needs the community is going to have and be able to make sure we can respond to those needs.”

If plans proceed with a new hospital at Enterprise Park, Fauvie said the intent is to have St. Joseph Warren Hospital on Eastland Avenue SE remain useful.

“It’s part of our future,” he said. “We talk about rebalancing services, that property could be repurposed.”

GM announced in November its intentions to place the Lordstown plant, as well as four other North American facilities, on “unalloctaed” status as of March 2019. The company also stated it will no longer produce the Chevrolet Cruze, which has been assembled in Lordstown since 2010.

There is, however, a local grassroots effort to try to convince GM’s top officials to keep the complex open and grow local jobs. The last day for employees at the plant is March 8.