Plans to demolish Akron’s historic Firestone Plant 1 have stalled.
On Tuesday, the Urban Design and Historic Preservation Commission rejected the city’s request to demolish the building, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company's former headquarters. The city has owned the property since 2013, according to the proposal.
Commission members said the 115-year-old structure, particularly the clock tower in its front facade, is a symbol of the Akron community and its industrial past.
“That structure is very meaningful to the community,” commission member Leianne Neff Heppner said. “It represents that time in our history at the turn of the 20th century when rubber was king, and we feel that it is important to preserve such structures for the future, so we continue to tell that story.”
City officials, on the other hand, said preserving the building would be too costly.
The city’s planning department could appeal the board’s decision, meaning the proposal would go before Akron City Council for final determination.
Several commission members wanted to take more time to find developers and consider proposals for repurposing the structure.
“The reason to do it is, number one, to honor the site’s history … you could address community needs, and preserve a remarkable, basically irreplaceable structure,” commission member Mark Smith said.
Smith listed off several ideas for the structure, such as an event space, history museum or small business incubator.
Planning Director Kyle Julien responded that the building would cost an estimated $5 million to renovate and redevelop. There are environmental constraints and zoning challenges, he said, which caused past attempts at redevelopment to fall through.
A new development would need to generate significant revenue to justify the cost, Julien said.
“There’s definitely a mismatch here between the needs of this building to imagine it reused, and our capacity to support that without really constraining the other investments that we need to do as a city,” Julien said.
City officials are hoping to use the land the building currently stands on as a potential site for new industrial development, Julien added.
The $5 million to redevelop the building would have to come from the city’s general obligation debt, and at the expense of other city projects, he said.
The commission previously approved a request to demolish the rear wings of the building and keep the clock tower last year, but in July, city officials told the board it wasn’t a feasible plan and asked to demolish the entire structure.
Another commission member, Elizabeth Corbin Murphy, refuted Julien’s claim that preserving the building would cost $5 million. She also questioned whether the city had done enough over the past year to consider options for repurposing the front of the building.
“It just seems to me that if we’re right-sizing the space like we thought we were doing last year, we should be considering development of the right-sized space before it should be torn down,” Corbin Murphy said.
Commission members considered delaying the vote until their next meeting, but Julien and other planning department officials warned taking additional time could be even more costly.
It would be a “huge harm” to delay the vote, said Development Manager David Messner. The city previously secured $7.5 million in funding from the state’s Department of Development to demolish the structure, and that funding will expire soon, he said.
“It’s currently a blight in the neighborhood,” Messner added. “It’s a constant source of police phone calls, vandalism and other issues.”
The city has received verbal confirmation from the DOD granting an extension on the funding, but it must complete the project by next year, Messner noted. Based on the size of the building, he estimated the demolition process could take at least a year.
A city spokesperson told Ideastream Public Media that the city is “considering next steps” after Tuesday’s vote. If the city appeals, the plan could come before council when it returns from its summer recess in September.
Neff Heppner encouraged Akronites to look into the proposal in the meantime.
“It’s now time for the residents to speak up if they would like to see this building stay in our environment,” she said.
Four members — Neff Heppner, Corbin Murphy, Smith and Mark Schweitzer — voted against the proposal. Gwen Petway voted in favor, and Elizabeth Kukwa abstained. John Wheeler was absent from the meeting.
The seven-member board considers submissions for historic landmark designations, as well as requests for alterations or demolition of buildings considered historic landmarks.
