Tribune Chronicle / Allie Vugrincic Anthony Cafaro Sr., former president and CEO of the Cafaro Company, examines a large sinkhole in the parking lot between Gander Outdoors and Texas Roadhouse in the Howland portion of the Eastwood Mall complex on Friday afternoon.

HOWLAND — A sinkhole 12 feet deep and large enough to “swallow a car” formed in a parking lot near Gander Outdoors at the Eastwood Mall complex after a 60-inch storm sewer pipe broke, causing the ground to give way, according to mall maintenance and Cafaro Company spokesperson Joe Bell.

“It’s not unusual to have a storm sewer pipe that gives way after many years,” said Anthony Cafaro Sr., former president and CEO of the Cafaro Company, which owns the Eastwood Mall complex property as well as about a dozen other malls in several states.

Cafaro Sr. went out to examine the hole Friday after it was discovered by Eastwood Mall maintenance crews early Thursday morning.

Bell said the hole was “almost certainly” related to flooding Wednesday that put parts of the mall complex parking lots under as much as a foot of water when heavy rains overwhelmed the drainage system.

Bell said a blockage was suspected to have caused the flooding, but crews have not found anything obviously wrong besides the hole. A second, smaller sinkhole formed in the grassy hill separating Niles Cortland Road from Gander Outdoors.

The hallow under the larger hole, which is bigger than a parking spot, extended toward the grass and below parts of the parking lot, which appears intact, according to mall maintenance.

“We know how to fix it, and it’ll be expected momentarily,” Cafaro Sr. said.

Bell said a contractor already has been to the site. The remaining rubble will be removed, the line checked and a new pipe lowered before the area is refilled and paved, he said.

The pipe that burst was about 30 years old and made of corrugated metal as opposed to concrete, according to Cafaro Sr., who jokingly told a family who stopped to look at the hole that “we have a swimming pool now.”

Mike Taninecz, an Eastwood Mall maintenance employee, speculated that a larger part of the parking lot will have to be dug up. He said bubbling and cracking pavement near the hole indicates more ground may give way.

He and another employee warned shoppers to stay out of the caution-taped area around the hole for safety reasons.

Taninecz said a few months ago, a smaller sinkhole formed near McDonald’s, also along Niles Cortland Road. That hole has since been repaired.

Sinkholes are common in areas where the rock below the land surface is limestone, carbonate rock, salt beds or rocks that can naturally be dissolved by circulating groundwater, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website. Eastern Ohio is made up largely of “evaporite rocks” salt and gypsum, which are associated with collapses.