The future of Firestone Plant #1 and its clock tower, which Akron officials planned to demolish before a state agency stepped in to stop them, won’t be decided by a Tuesday deadline.
Akron Planning Director Kyle Julien said Thursday that the deadline — which has already been extended more than once — still wouldn’t give the city enough time to determine which of five options would be acceptable to preserve some of the historic site. He said he planned to ask for more time.
“We have to,” Julien said.
Tuesday, the city will present options to preserve some of the structure, or at least the clock face, to its Urban Design and Historic Preservation Commission. That group, in August, rejected the city’s request to tear down Plant #1 in its entirety. (That decision was appealed to City Council, which allowed the demolition while asking staffers to try to save part of the building.)
Julien said he did not expect the group to vote, but the city wanted to present information to the commission and gather feedback.
It would cost $7.35 million to tear down all of Plant #1, Dennis Check, president of Hasenstab Architects, said Thursday, at the last of four community meetings at Firestone Park Community Center arranged to explain the city’s options to residents. Preserving just the clock face and operating mechanism — to install it in a new development — would cost between $650,000 and $920,000 more, Check said, while the cost to keep only the clock tower would run up the demolition bill by an additional $8 million to $8.5 million.
Keeping the clock tower only is the most expensive option of the five that were presented. It costs more because the structure wasn’t built to stand alone, said David Cremers, the president of S.M. Haw Engineers.
He likened it to building a deck on a house, then removing the house and expecting the deck to stay put. It’s possible, he said, but there’s a cost to ensuring it will stand on its own.
Cremers also said that windows and holes in the floor of the clock tower would make the structure want to twist.
“The more building you take away, the less stable everything is,” Cremers said. “It’s not going to fall down right away, but it would slowly creep towards leaning.”
Here are the total costs of each option
- Demolish the entire building – $7.35 million.
- Keep a portion of the building’s front section and the clock tower – $12.35 million to $13.35 million.
- Keep the entire front building and the clock tower – $14.85 million.
- Keep only the clock tower – $15.35 million to $15.85 million.
- Reconstruct the top portion of the clock tower on a new site – $10.45 million to $11.15 million.
- Incorporate the clock face and mechanism into a new development – $8 million to $8.27 million.
Akron must provide plan to preserve clock tower
The city held meetings with residents in response to the dispute with the State Historic Preservation Office, which came to light a month ago. More than three dozen people came to the last one.
At that meeting, residents expressed frustration that city officials waited so long to consider other options, given their knowledge of an agreement with the state that gave Akron $6 million in demolition money to help offset the cost of tearing down the bulk of the 1910 structure as long as Akron agreed to keep a portion of the eastern-most building, as well as the clock tower.
“They certainly have not done enough to engage the public,” said Caleb Mays, who does construction rehabilitation work in Lorain and Akron. “The city is jumping at money to destroy their history.”
The state office sent city officials a letter in November saying Akron must provide “a plan and commitment for how it will resolve this dispute and fulfill its responsibilities related to the preservation and interpretation of the Firestone Clock Tower.”
Keeping more of the building, less of the clock tower
In addition to the proposals to keep only the clock face and to keep the tower alone, the other options the city is considering would keep more of the building or less of the clock tower.
Keeping a portion of the front of the building, along with the clock tower, would cost between $5 million and $6 million more than the original demolition cost, Check said. Keeping all of the front wing and clock tower would add $7.5 million to the total demolition cost.
Some of those added costs come from the work to seal and waterproof areas that would be left open from demolition, as well as the precision work required to keep just a portion of the building.
“It’s easy to knock the whole thing down,” Check said. “If you want to be selective, it costs more.”
The final option is to keep just the top 30 feet or so of the clock tower and rebuild it — likely in another location, since the tower itself is toward the middle of the 12-acre site. That would cost an additional $3.1 million to $3.8 million.
“We know it’s not a popular option because people don’t like change, but you could have a scale model [of the building] and QR codes” to give people context for the history of Plant #1, Cremers said. “If you leave it right there, it limits the options.”
The top of the tower could be classified as a monument, he said, and a park-like setting could be created around it.
That’s what Brad Faidley, who lives in Firestone Park, hopes will happen. But he’s not confident any of the structural pieces can be saved.
“I think it’s the clock itself” that’s important, he said. “It represents time and the 100 years that it’s been here.”
Akron ‘working really hard’ to find compromise between preservation and cost
In the audience Thursday, residents questioned why more effort wasn’t made to reuse the building as it stands. City officials explained that there are restrictions on turning Plant #1 into housing because of agreements reached regarding chemicals used in tire production, while buildings with multiple columns in the interior spaces are no longer ideal for current industrial uses.
The city has been trying to market the property for years, said Julien and Suzie Graham Moore, Akron’s director of economic development. There simply aren’t any takers.
“We have not found anyone interested in using this site,” Graham Moore said. “You have to have a partner.”
Laura Noel, a landscape architect whose father, Dana Noel, has been an outspoken proponent of saving the building, said she wished the city had looked into designating the site as a cultural landscape. That could have made more grant money available, but “you need more time to do that,” she said.
“It’s a cultural asset,” Laura Noel said.
Donnie Kammer, the Akron City Council member who represents the area, said he does not support saving only the clock face and mechanism — he called it a “stupid idea” — but said he would be in favor of saving part of the tower and creating a park around it. Most of what he’s hearing from constituents, he said, is a desire to keep the clock tower.
Still, he said, he’d like to see the whole building be saved.
Julien said the city is “working really hard” to find an option that’s both economical and will meet the state’s preservation requirements.
“We can’t afford another $8 million,” he said. “What is it we can take on?”