CANFIELD - Canfield City Council voted to approve a ten year, hundred percent tax abatement for the owners of a local Dairy Queen franchise, looking to relocate their Canfield store.

The tax abatement will be for the franchise's new location, which is set to move from 101 South Broad Street to 587 E. Main Street, the old Perkins restaurant that closed in 2019.

"What it does is it basically says hey listen, look, we're looking to build our town up a little bit, we're gonna bring some businesses in here commercial businesses the ones that we wanna bring and this helps them come into the city so we help them but then it also helps us too with employment and with the taxes coming back to us," Don Dragish, Canfield mayor said.

The way it works is there's a commercial CRA agreement that allows the city to grant abatements on new commercial construction.

"Abatements only apply to construction costs," Mark Fortunato, Canfield city attorney said. "So land acquisition costs, equipment, etcetera are not subject to abatement," he said.

This means the business will still have to pay property taxes.

"There's always property tax still being paid on the value of the property before you started construction, that doesn't go away. So abatements don't mean you don't pay any property taxes what an abatement does is for a period of time certain, here ten years, you're not paying property taxes based on the value of the construction that you did on the property," Fortunato said.

Mayor Dragish said they also received approval from Canfield schools who is backing them on this decision.

Additionally, the location will upgrade from a treat-only store to a "Grill & Chill" store, which will offer more hot food items on the menu in addition to ice cream treats.

The franchise owners purchased the former Perkins property in 2021, and ground was broken for the new Dairy Queen store in November of 2025.

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