The University of Akron will sell Quaker Square for $800,000 to three local business partners who plan to reopen the hotel, where rooms are built into round, Quaker Oats grain silos, and renovate the rest of the complex, which has been largely empty for years.
Kyle Craven, the vice president of Akron-based Craven Construction, said he is planning to purchase Quaker Square along with partners Steve Dimengo and Joe Scaccio. Dimengo is a tax attorney and the managing partner of Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, LLC, a business law firm. Scaccio is the president and owner of Akron-based J-RS Cos. and previously made an offer to buy the PNC Center at 1 Cascade Plaza.
Together, the partners formed a business called Ohio River Investments II, incorporated in January.
Craven said he recalled visiting Quaker Square as a child to see Santa Claus and view model train displays. Returning to the complex as a buyer was “bringing back all the memories,” he said.
“It’s definitely one of the more historical, iconic staples of downtown architecture,” Craven said. “It’s definitely something we want to preserve.”
Group ‘committed to preserving’ Quaker Square
The sale of the complex at South Broadway and East Mill streets must be approved by the State Controlling Board, which is due to consider the proposal April 7, University of Akron spokesperson Cristine Boyd said previously. The board must approve the sale before Ohio’s Department of Administrative Services can sell the state-owned buildings.
In a statement Thursday, Boyd said the sale was an “exciting turning point” for the city and the university.
“Their goal is to breathe new life into the historic facility, aiming to reestablish it as a fully functioning hotel that draws visitors and complements nearby assets such as the convention center,” she said. “Importantly, they are committed to preserving the iconic Quaker Station banquet facility and maintaining the integrity of the landmark as part of Akron’s skyline.”
Adding a hotel adjacent to the John S. Knight Center has been a priority for years, said Kyle Kutuchief, the program director in Akron for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Kutuchief, who said he also remembered meeting Santa Claus as a child at Quaker Square and buying peppermint sticks with his family, said the fact that the BLU-Tique Hotel and Courtyard Akron Downtown have succeeded shows there’s “more than enough demand” for three hotels in the area.
Quaker Square is “just an iconic spot in our community,” Kutuchief said, saying he hoped most of the redevelopment would be customer-facing.
The hotel’s round rooms are “architecturally bizarre, they’re weird, they’re really cool,” he said. “It’s very Akron.”
The developers need to have ambition, he said. If they’re successful, Quaker Square could be a magnet that could draw students from the University of Akron to the development and other parts of downtown and attract other people to Akron.
“We made oats in this town; it’s our quirky thing,” he said. “It’s different than the strip malls in the ‘burbs.”
‘It’s going to take a lot of work’
Craven said he hadn’t taken on a redevelopment project like this before and was hesitant to provide details of the developers’ plans before the vote that would allow them to buy the property. But the university’s statement said Craven’s group did not plan any demolitions, a point Craven confirmed — “only thoughtful renovations to ensure the building continues to be a valuable part of downtown Akron.”
“It’s going to take a lot of work, there’s no doubt about it,” Craven said. “I think it’s going to be a challenging project.”
In his October 2024 bid to buy the PNC Center, Scaccio said in a letter to Akron City Council that he was “extremely committed to being part of the re-birth of the downtown Akron community.” In his letter, Scaccio cited his history of buying and filling up buildings such as the Merriman Valley Plaza and Lock 22 Plaza as evidence of his successes.
The Merriman Valley Plaza was half occupied when he took over in 2018, he wrote, and fully occupied after six months. Lock 22 Plaza was 75% vacant for “many years,” he wrote, but fully occupied two months after he acquired it in 2022. He said he offered $3 million for the PNC Center; the sale to a company controlled by Gino Faciana, the longtime co-CEO of Medina-based Pleasant Valley Corp., was for $2.8 million.
Quaker Square, which the Summit County Fiscal Office values at $17.7 million, was on the market for more than four years, the university statement said. It will be appraised by a third-party appraiser before the sale can go through.
The agreement comes “with a significant commitment from the buyers to invest heavily in restoration,” the statement said, and is a “promising sign for downtown revitalization.” The university is also involved in renovating the Polsky Building, which it owns.
The university most recently used the former Quaker Square hotel for student housing during the coronavirus pandemic, but it no longer does so. Selling the buildings will help reduce maintenance and utility costs that the university estimates at $500,000 annually.
And according to the purchase agreement, the university will have the right to use the Quaker Station banquet facility free of charge through the end of 2026. The university will be responsible for maintenance costs during that period.
The purchase agreement was signed in early February.
The planned Quaker Square redevelopment comes as Cascade Plaza buildings and others in downtown Akron are moving toward being repurposed and used. Kutuchief said some early apartment redevelopment, and high downtown occupancy, sparked others to stop defining Akron by its past and start looking toward its future.
“Something’s happening,” he said. “It’s great.”
Editor’s note: The Knight Foundation is a funder of Signal Akron.