Faces of Main Street: John Fernyak

When Mansfield’s Main Street Improvement Project is complete, it will mean more to John Fernyak than just a new streetscape. For John, it represents the culmination of decades of work that began long before public investment caught up with a private vision.

As the owner of Engwiller Properties, the largest property management company in downtown Mansfield, you wouldn’t guess that John came into the real estate business almost accidentally. In the mid-80’s John was happily running MT Business Technologies, a successful office supplier, when an unexpected opportunity steered him in that direction. First National Bank, a customer of MT, closed its Fourth and Main branch and then-president Rex Collins suggested that John buy the building.

“It really wasn’t safe to be down here,” John remembers of the time. His mother and aunt had recently relocated their optometry business from 106 N. Main to a safer, more business-friendly location and John wasn’t interested in putting his stake down in the area, so he politely declined. But when Rex persisted and his suggestion turned to urging, John says he “made what I thought was a crazy low offer.” To his surprise, it was accepted.

From there, John began purchasing vacant properties and restoring them one by one. “We started taking down the boards, putting glass back in the windows, and finding people to move in,” he explains. In time, he accumulated over 50 buildings, fueling downtown’s revival.

One of his proudest contributions is Mansfield’s carrousel. When boarded-up buildings made it difficult to attract talent, John suggested the idea to the Chamber of Commerce to make the community more family-friendly. Initially met with laughter, he made it happen, bringing in carvers from Connecticut to make America’s first hand-carved carrousel in over 60 years. The carousel became an icon, a magnet for families, and a symbol that downtown could thrive again.

For John, revitalization has always been about steady, deliberate action. He has advocated for converting one-way streets to two-way so drivers would slow down and notice businesses. He’s reinvested rental income back into restoring buildings, including installing new roofs on over a dozen buildings in the past year alone. “It’s not rocket science,” he says. “You just do one building at a time and keep moving forward.”

Now, as construction crews transform Main Street itself, John sees the city’s investment as an affirmation of what he and other private citizens began years ago. “When this work is finished, it’s going to be absolutely outstanding,” he says. “It’s the next step in making downtown a place where people want to come, shop, and stay.”

For Mansfield, the Main Street Improvement Project isn’t just an upgrade in infrastructure, it’s the continuation of a story that people like John Fernyak began writing long ago.