The College Township Council has approved spending more than $150,000 to repair a sinkhole on the Nittany Mall site, but officials said they would recoup the money from the mall’s owners, through a municipal lien if necessary.
The sinkhole, located in the stormwater basin between the Rural King parking lot and College Avenue, opened in December 2023 and has not been repaired since, despite the municipality filing several civil lawsuits against the owners of the Nittany Mall.
Township deputy engineer Jere Northridge described the sinkhole as a “danger to civilians.” Attorney Mark Lingousky said the sinkhole’s proximity to the road was another reason repairs needed to be done quickly.
Talks between College Township and Namdar Realty Group, the mall’s owner, about removing the sinkhole were going smoothly until the group cut off communication with the township in April, said deputy township manager Mike Bloom.
“Initially, Namdar (Realty Group) had been working on this project and was doing what they needed to do to mitigate the sinkhole issues,” Bloom said. “They stopped work on it in April, and since then the community has tried multiple times to get them back into the process to no avail.”
Earlier this month, College Township filed another civil lawsuit against Namdar Realty Group, seeking $12,000 in damages for failing to fix the problem. Excavation work initiated by Namdar was halted in late April after a second sinkhole was discovered, the lawsuit says.
“No work has been performed since the initial outage, and College Township has not received any plans to correct the outages or a schedule for the work,” the complaint states.
Namdar Realty Group did not respond to a request for comment.
At the July College Township Council meeting, it was decided to solicit bids to repair the sinkhole. On Thursday, the council chose the lowest bidder – HGI, Inc., with a bid of $153,490.
All costs will be charged to Namdar in accordance with the agenda of the meeting.
“College Township will provide the property owner with an opportunity to make repayment in a timely manner,” Bloom wrote in an email to the CDT. “If this does not happen, a municipal lien may be placed on the property to ensure repayment.”
In addition to the $12,000 in enforcement penalties the township is seeking with the lawsuit alleging Namdar’s violation of the township’s stormwater management ordinances, the township’s ordinance provides for a fine of up to $1,000 per day for each day the ordinance is in violation until action is taken to correct the problem..
The August complaint also states that the municipality intends to seek additional penalties. Namdar has not yet paid the municipality any of the fees owed, Bloom said.
