Buffalo Wild Wings moving into Lima proper

LIMA - Buffalo Wild Wings will have a new home, inside the city.

Owners of the restaurant, currently inside the nearly vacant American Mall, plan to build a new $1.5 million, 600,000-square-foot facility in the recently annexed land north and south of Allentown Road.

City Council approved a 50 percent, 15-year real estate tax abatement for the business Monday.

The restaurant will maintain 18 full-time jobs and 27 part-time jobs and add 18 full-time and 17 part-time jobs. The free-standing restaurant will be bigger, with a sports theme and the multiple televisions customers have come to know there, general manager Karen Paul said.

The restaurant hopes to be open by the end of the year, Paul said.

Buffalo Wild Wings is the first business to signal its intention to move to the land slated for retail and commercial use.

As owners of the American Mall prepare to demolish the site between Market and Elm streets, many of the few remaining tenants have closed or moved their businesses. Phar-Mor and Value City have closed in recent years. The Andersons is the only large remaining retail presence in the mall.

American Mall owners Cafaro Inc. announced a plan in 2006 to renovate the site, but the economy has slowed the progress.