VIENNA — The former Westlawn neighborhood on Warren’s southwest side — once a thriving quarter that deteriorated into blight and eventually was leveled to become a vast stretch of vacant property — is a strong candidate for redevelopment.

So much so, the Western Reserve Port Authority has made arrangements to accept a little more than 81 acres there from Warren and Warren City Schools with the intent to turn around and sell the land to an end user that already has been identified and, apparently, ready to build.

The nature of the interested company, however, hasn’t been revealed and the port authority isn’t ready to say.

“Right now, this is really the technical aspect of just teeing up the ability to receive the property to work with a developer on their rollout,” port authority Executive Director Anthony Trevena said of board-approved resolutions Wednesday that help move along the project. “They still have proprietary information we need to preserve and protect at this moment until it’s transferred.”

The resolutions green-lit Trevena to execute agreements with the city and school district to acquire the land and with a developer to sell the property should a deal formalize.

The city owns 48.1 acres and the school district, 33.2 acres.

The land controlled by the school district once was the site of Western Reserve High School, and later middle school after the district combined two high schools in the early 1990s. Alden Elementary School also was at the site.

The middle school was demolished in August 2010 and Alden in June of the same year.

Trevena said a proposed end user has met with the city and port authority “to talk about what their plans are for that property,” and it’s looking like work there could begin in the spring.

“As soon as construction season comes into play they’ll be able to be putting shovels into the ground,” Trevena said.

The project falls within local zoning for the area. In December, Warren City Council approved a zone change for the land, from residential to manufacturing, in an effort to attract business development.

The agreements are allowed under special powers given to port authorities in Ohio law that allows them to acquire and sell property without going out to bid.

Warren and the port authority have had a cooperative agreement since 2017. To make this project work, the port authority and school district must enter into a similar cooperative agreement. The port authority approved its part Wednesday. The district’s school board will have to approve the agreement and property transfer.

The former Westlawn neighborhood was built in the 1940s to house workers at the former Ravenna Arsenal just west of Newton Falls, but by the 1980s and 1990s had fallen on hard times, notorious for drugs, crimes and fires.

The area was cleaned up and the homes, mostly if not all, multi-family units, were demolished in the 1990s.