Akron‘s Firestone Plant #1 has a final reprieve.
A tense compromise was reached Monday as competing groups sought to preserve the landmark plant — particularly its distinctive clocktower — and to not lose millions of dollars from the State of Ohio to pay for its demolition.
All eleven members of Akron City Council present on Monday evening agreed to allow the entire plant to be demolished, but only if a two-month effort to find a viable developer fails. Now, the city and preservationists have until Nov. 21 to find a way to save any or all of the 115-year-old building.
But such a tight timeframe to find a savior, and an incomplete plan for how viability would be determined, leaves Dana Noel to think the agreement is “some kind of a fig leaf.”
“There’s no way any developer in the country would have any kind of commitment. No one would make any kind of commitment in 60 days,” said Noel, the advocacy chair for Progress Through Preservation, a group that promotes preservation and adaptive reuse for historic buildings in Summit County.
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“It just doesn’t happen. It’s bogus.”
Kyle Julien, Akron’s planning director, told council members at a committee meeting Monday that he had already taken one potential developer through the building. He called it “a signal of our good faith” in looking for someone to take on the project.
“I don’t know what the process is going to look like, but there will be a process and we’ll make a good-faith effort and share that process and the outcomes with you,” Julien said.
But Julien said the city was not willing to lose a grant for about $5 million that would help pay for the planned demolition. Any potential developer would have to assure their efforts with a bond or through other means. If the period goes beyond 60 days, and assuming no viable developer comes forward, it would jeopardize the city’s ability to start demolition on time to keep the grant, he said.
The city already had permission to demolish most of the structure but had assured council members that it planned to preserve part of the building, including the front section and the clocktower. In recent months, Julien and others have said that the cost of preservation is too high — about $12 million to save the building, as compared to $7 million to demolish it.
Noel disputed those figures, saying there were discrepancies in the reports.
Firestone Plant #1 clocktower a sign of a ‘great city’
Regardless of the cost, some residents think the expense to preserve a piece of Akron’s history is worthwhile. Rachelle Dain, who began working as a secretary at Firestone the week after her 1973 Garfield High School graduation, told Signal Akron she can still picture the inside of the offices — the placement of the mimeograph machine, the excitement of the electric typewriter’s arrival, her cigar-chomping boss and the ever-present cloud of smoke that hung over her floor.
“It’s a memory you can see,” Dain said.
She worked there for seven years and said she still has friends she met at Firestone. Dain, who lives in North Akron, said she thinks preserving part of the building is a sign of respect for Firestone and what the company helped Akron become.
“Keep that clocktower going as a sign we were once a great city,” she said.
Joey Harper suggested locals might contribute to a fundraising campaign to help preserve the building. She knows it’s millions of dollars, but she said it’s important not to bury history.
“It was the Rubber City,” Harper said. “Taking it apart brick by brick, I don’t know, but it’s just sad to see it go.”
Harper, who lives in West Akron, suggested at least the top of the clocktower might be saved and turned into a memorial.
But Doug White wants to see more than that. The aunt who raised him worked for Firestone for 47 years, and he remembers watching her leave the building — not to mention, paying a quarter to swim in an on-site pool. White, who urged residents to protest this weekend to pressure city leaders to preserve the building, said if not for the company, he’d “have never lived.”
“To me, Akron has a very hard time with history and keeping it,” he said. “There are so many memories and so many things the clocktower stands for.”
Can anything be saved?
Noel, with Progress Through Preservation, said he understands if, ultimately, Firestone Plant #1 can’t be saved. But he doesn’t think the city has done enough to try to keep it, and he wants officials to be transparent about that.
“The whole thing’s contrived, I think,” Noel said of the two-month window to find a developer. “I don’t want to call people liars, but I think there’s a whole lot of finagling.”
Similarly, City Council Member Donnie Kammer, who represents the area, said he was worried that Julien’s department was going to “throw this in the bottom drawer” rather than make additional efforts to find a developer.
While he said 60 days was better than no time, he didn’t think it was enough. Kammer voted at committee Monday afternoon against moving the proposal forward, but voted for the measure later in the full City Council meeting.
A spokesperson for the city did not respond to requests for additional comment about the planned delay or who had already toured the Plant #1 site. In the committee meeting, Julien said a lot of the process would have to be worked out since the proposal to grant the city permission to demolish the whole building, but with a 60-day moratorium, came after business hours Friday.
Break-ins and other incidents at Plant #1 have been a “significant problem,” he said.
“So we’re just trying to balance all those interests — recognizing the historical significance of the building and also the troublesome nature of it,” Julien said. “I’m not trying to be evasive. We have not really huddled on what the process is going to be yet.”
Julien also said the city did not intend to spend a lot of money on it.
Kammer wants Firestone Park to have what Goodyear Heights does in terms of a new development anchored by a historic structure, he said, referring to the East End project, which redeveloped the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. headquarters complex.
“I would like us to repurpose this building,” he said. “Before we eliminate something that put us on the map, I would like to exhaust all avenues. … We as a city just got to get the word out there.”
Editor’s note: Signal Akron Government Reporter Doug Brown contributed to this reporting.