Question about Shelby’s last motel offers a glimpse of local real estate scene
By David Jacobs
Shelby’s last remaining motel and its neighboring closed diner — once the landmark L&K restaurant — along the high-profile State Route 39/Mansfield Avenue corridor are drawing new attention as questions about their future remain.
A reader who had been looking into booking rooms there for later this year raised the issue in response to an unrelated recent social media post she had seen about the Shelby motel/diner property.
Here's what's known:
-- No recent property-sales transaction for the site, the Richland County Auditor's Office reports. It traced the last property sale at that joint motel/diner site back to 1990.
-- The city of Shelby project coordinator Joe Gies says: "There has not been an application for a demolition at that property."
-- A person answering the phone at the Relax Inn, but would not give his full name, said on Friday that the motel at 178 Mansfield Ave. was not currently taking reservations. Further questions were referred to an unspecified "landlord." A separate telephone message was left with the contact listed in property records.
-- The motel's automatic telephone answering system remained active on Friday, listing it as the Relax Inn along with its address, directions and an option for reservations/information.
-- The city of Shelby municipal government's Finance and Income Tax Office says all 3 percent quarterly motel taxes involving the Relax Inn were paid as normal for the first quarter of 2025, a reporting period that ended on March 31.
-- The Shelby Fire Department says that the most recent annual inspection of the Relax Inn is current as of that 2024 visit. Shelby Fire works with the State Fire Marshal's Office on such routine inspections.
— The Richland County auditor's real property conveyance records, dating back about 60 days, show no activity involving the site of both the motel and former diner. (It is normal for some lag between a real estate transaction and its appearance in public records.)
-- No commercial realty listings could immediately be located for the Relax Inn or Diner 39. A separate effort was made to review any other current business-type licensing paperwork on file for the motel.
-- A message was left on Friday for a representative of Diner 39, which announced via social media last year that its last day was Dec. 22, 2024.
-- An internet-only auction for cooking-related equipment and furnishings -- for a "Shelby Diner" address with the Diner 39 location (180 Mansfield Ave.) -- started April 10 and ended at 7 p.m. April 22. The auction website listed an equipment removal date of April 24 and possible arrangements for April 25 for fixed equipment removal.
OTHER REAL ESTATE LISTINGS
Outside Shelby, the nearest motels and hotels are in Ontario and Mansfield.
While researching the Relax Inn/Diner 39 information, other unrelated properties in the region were found listed online by commercial real estate-related firms.
Some examples:
-- 48-54 W. Main St., Shelby, listed as a 51,000-square-foot office building with a listing of $899,999. "SVN Wilson Commercial Group is pleased to offer and to seek development partners with the City of Shelby, Ohio of an entire five-building historical block of downtown Shelby, Ohio," the listing at loopnet.com states. Historical tax credits are also mentioned.
-- A 5,572-square-foot church/religious facility building at 2598 E. Smiley Ave., in Shelby, listed at $279,900
--- the former Cornell's IGA supermarket site, 140 Mansfield Ave., for sale at $1,150,000
-- a $6,032,000 investment sale at Applewood Plaza, 331 N. Lexington Springmill Road, Ontario. The retail site features 54,116 square feet.
"The subject property is shadow-anchored by one of the strongest Walmart Supercenters in Ohio," the loopnet.com listing states.
"The three largest tenants: Dollar Tree, Cato [fashions], and Hong Kong Buffet occupy 41% of the center," the announcement also said.
