U.S. 250 a shopping powerhouse

PERKINS TWP. — The area's U.S. 250 commercial corridor once a road mainly known as the route to Cedar Point, has become a retail and restaurant powerhouse for a five-county region. That's emphasized in a new Greater Sandusky Partnership report and by the memories of north Ohio residents who have seen a dramatic transformation of the roadway within their lifetimes. The new U.S. 250 Retail Corridor Report is a 30-page document put together by Jeff Kerr, planning and policy director for the partnership. It is posted at the local economic development organization and regional chamber's website, greatersandusky.com. Data highlights high traffic Kerr said Erie County is often described as a tourism destination. While that's obviously true, don't forget that U.S. 250 has become a retail hub for a large area and not just in Sandusky, he said. "We wanted people to understand this is a very healthy retail corridor," Kerr said. Kerr's report uses anonymized cellphone app location data, gleaned from Placer.ai, to track how many customers visited a given business along the U.S. 250 corridor. That data demonstrates that a 2.1-mile stretch of Milan Road, from Oakland Avenue to Ohio 2, falling within Perkins Township, is a retail magnet that draws people from a five-county region: Erie, Huron, Lorain, Ottawa and Sandusky counties. The report emphasizes that for a wide local area, the U.S. 250 corridor provides a serious shopping experience for customers who otherwise would have to take a long drive to get to greater Cleveland or to Toledo. While some customers, of course, live close to the highway, almost one-quarter of all visits come from people who live more than 50 miles away, the report states. In 2025, the corridor received about 15.6 million overall visits and, of those, nearly 60% traveled 10 miles or more to get to the U.S. 250 corridor. The 2-mile retail corridor includes Sandusky Mall, Walmart, Meijer, Target, Sam's Club, Menards, Park Place, Crossings of Sandusky that houses the shopping center with Kohl's and many restaurants that are part of prominent national restaurant chains, the report notes. Two major highways, Ohio 2 and U.S. 250, and local regional highways make the retail corridor accessible to people from cities such as Norwalk, Bellevue, Fremont and Port Clinton, it reports. In terms of most-visited locations, the study underscores that the: • Sandusky Mall was the most visited shopping center. • Great Wolf Lodge was the most visited hotel. It did not include areas south of Ohio 2, which includes Kalahari Resorts & Conventions. • Raising Cane's was the most frequented dining establishment. Although the study notes that its methodology might not have recorded customers who were served in fewer than 10 minutes. Why did it happen here? The U.S. 250 retail corridor provides better shopping experiences than anyone should really expect in a county that has less than 80,000 people, notes John Hoty, president of Hoty Enterprises, which owns land at a dozen locations along U.S. 250, serving clients such as Starbucks. Local factors have helped provide a good shopping experience for local residents. It helps that Erie County has Cedar Point and other important tourism and visitor draws, such as the Lake Erie islands and ample boating opportunities, Hoty said. But a great deal of the credit for the development of U.S. 250 must be given to the Cafaro family, real estate and mall experts based in Youngstown, who made the decision to build the Sandusky Mall in the 1970s. The Cafaros deserve notice not just for bringing in the mall but for making later decisions that prove they are canny businessmen who know what they are doing, Hoty said. As the interests of many shoppers have shifted from indoor malls to big stand-alone stores, the Cafaros have brought in stores such as Target, Best Buy and TJMaxx, which is at the mall but also accessible through an exterior entrance. Texas Roadhouse is a hot restaurant tenant, Hoty notes. Credit for retail development should also go to other players, such as the hotel development spearheaded by the Ruta and Sortino families. But without the mall, the Sandusky area probably doesn't get stores, like Meijer and Menards, Hoty said. When Meijer came in, it was the Michigan chain's easternmost outpost, Hoty pointed out. The Cafaros spotted trends quickly, Hoty said, noting that Sandusky Mall and its nearby tenants have done well even as malls such as Elyria's mall off of Ohio 57 have failed to prosper. Mall's development wasn't simple According to "The Sandusky Mall," a book by Chris Bores, Sandusky officials began talking about bringing a mall to Sandusky in the late 1960s, although at first the idea was to have a mall in downtown Sandusky. A meeting took place in November 1969 to discuss such a mall, but traffic and parking issues showed the proposal wasn't really feasible, Bores wrote. William Cafaro, of the Cafaro Co., decided to bring a mall to the Sandusky area. He looked at some possible locations along Ohio 4 before settling on a piece of farmland along U.S. 250. One thing that made the spot attractive, Bores' book states, is that there was a four-lane road, U.S. 250, in front of it. U.S. 250 had been expanded to four lanes around 1970, said Crystal Neelon, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Transportation. It had to be widened because of congestion, Neelon said. "Back in the day, U.S. 250 was the main route to get to Cedar Point. It is the route we signed for Cedar Point, and, back then, people used guide signs to get to their destinations," Neelon explained, adding that this was a time before GPS navigation. Construction of Sandusky Mall began in 1976 with the mall first opening in 1977. In a book about William Cafaro, his son, Anthony M. "Tony" Cafaro, Sr., recalled that construction of the mall was no easy task. Hard rock was 2 feet below the surface, as the mall was across the street from a quarry, making it difficult to put in sewer and gas lines. Trucks had to remove raw sewage for the first two years of the mall, while restaurants lacking gas had to use propane tanks. Extensive rock blasting was needed to finally put in the utility lines. The Cafaros had to work hard to bring in big stores as anchors. Montgomery Ward served as one anchor and so did a JCPenney store, which, according to the Sandusky Library's history blog, was originally located on Columbus Avenue in downtown Sandusky before it moved. After a planned third anchor, the May Co., pulled out of its agreement, the Cafaros lured in a local women's clothing store, Cohn, and subsidized its expansion into a small department store. It seems possible that U.S. 250 became a big shopping hub simply because it attracted the attention of the Cafaros. William Cafaro (1913-1998) was credited as a real estate pioneer when he died, age 84, at his office in Youngstown. The New York Times obituary said he "was one of the first to see the economic possibilities of shopping centers and strip malls." He also played a big role in developing Youngstown State University. William Cafaro's son, Anthony M. Cafaro, Sr., joined the company full-time in 1969. According to the Cafaro Co.'s website, he built more than 20 million square feet of commercial property in the 1970s and 1980s. A third generation, William A. Cafaro and Anthony Cafaro, Jr., took over in 2009. Mall spurred further development Before the mall opened, there was little to lure shoppers or hungry people to U.S. 250. In a local podcast, The Shore Line, Steven Schuster, the owner of Sandusky Bay Pancake House, formerly Perkins Pancake House, talked about working at his father's restaurant. It was the only restaurant between Perkins Avenue and Ohio 2 on U.S. 250, Schuster said. Schuster said the Perkins restaurant opened in 1963 and was then located at U.S. 250 and Bogart Road. In 1966, Schuster's father acquired the restaurant, so Sandusky Bay Pancake House is celebrating 60 years as a family business this year. While eateries may have been scarce, aerial photos provided to the Register from the Sandusky Library's historical archives show that there was some development along U.S. 250 as the mall went in, including a Ramada Inn and Holiday Inn near U.S. 250 and Ohio 2, with a few stores in place or under construction.