Considered to be one of the most significant old buildings in Akron, the former site of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 354 E. Market St. in University Park currently sits in ruins — its future remains uncertain.
The 1884 building, which was seriously damaged in a 2018 fire, was recently on the agenda of the Akron Vacant Building Board’s June meeting for being tax delinquent and for not having been registered on the city’s vacant building registry. It also appears that little progress has been made to renovate the former church.
The board approved a 90-day reprieve for local developer and owner Tony Troppe to register the building as a vacant building, correct the tax delinquency, secure access points, clear weeds, move forward with design plans for the building and schedule interior and exterior inspections with the city.
Sunday school and parish house building dedicated in 1885
The St. Paul’s congregation formed in 1835, but, according to the building’s National Register of Historic Places application, the Sunday school and parish house building that stands today in the triangle at East Market Street, Fir Hill and South Forge Street was not built until 1884. It was dedicated on Jan. 6, 1885.
Architect Jacob Snyder designed the Victorian Gothic church in the Akron Plan style, which facilitated Sunday school instruction with small instructional rooms around a semicircular main room. The Akron Plan was a popular architectural style from the 1870s to the 1920s as Sunday schools became popular during this time.
Twenty-four years later, a second building was built just west of the original structure on the same triangular plot of land. The two buildings were connected by a wooden-frame walkway.
Akron Documenter Wittman Sullivan discovered this story at the June 11 Vacant Building Board meeting.
The new sanctuary was designed by Columbus architect Frank L. Packard and was dedicated on May 20, 1909. An Akron Beacon Journal article from that day described the new building, which was designed in the Tudor Gothic style and constructed of Bedford stone. Its entrance faces the intersection of East Market Street and Fir Hill.
A number of well-known Akronites attended St. Paul’s at the time, including: George W. Crouse, a businessman and U.S. Congressman for whom Crouse Community Learning Center is named; Harvey S. Firestone, the president of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.; George R. Hill, president of the American Sewer Pipe company; and Arthur J. Saalfield, president of Saalfield Publishing.
Dr. Walter F. Tunks, the church’s rector from 1930 to 1953, was the head of Akron’s Oxford Group, which hosted meetings that were a forerunner of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Martha Firestone, granddaughter of Harvey S. Firestone, Sr., married William Clay Ford, grandson of the late Henry Ford, at St. Paul’s on June 21, 1947. The Akron Beacon Journal article from that day deemed it the “biggest society wedding in Akron’s history.”
In 1952, St. Paul’s congregation moved to its current location at 1361 W. Market St. The Firestone family donated money to the University of Akron to purchase the former church, and the building was renamed the Firestone Conservatory of Music.
Church becomes recital and rehearsal space for University of Akron
UA music and vocal students and faculty used the space for rehearsals and recitals over the years. The University Singers’ spring concert in May 1953 was the music department’s first program there, according to a May 1, 1953, Akron Beacon Journal article.
By the early 1970s, UA’s music department, made up of 800 students, had outgrown the Firestone Conservatory. Professor of Music John Coe was quoted in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sept. 26, 1971, as saying the conservatory “is the most squalid, overcrowded, unhealthy, inadequate and unsafe building in the entire complex of university structures.”
In 1976, the music department moved to the newly built Guzzetta Hall, and the former church became the university’s Ballet Center that same year. The Ballet Center housed the Ohio Ballet and the Dance Institute. That same year, the 1885 building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Thirty years later, the Ballet Center moved into an $11.1 million, 50,000 square-foot addition to Guzzetta Hall, and the university left the former church on East Market Street vacant.
Demolition of the historic church was on the university’s list of proposed capital projects for 2016 — that appears to have been postponed when UA leased the building to a local McDonald’s franchisee for potential reuse for an unspecified period of time, according to a July 29, 2018, Akron Beacon Journal article.
A three-alarm fire broke out on April 18, 2018, and heavily damaged the 1885 building, shattering windows and collapsing much of the roof.
An Akron Beacon Journal article from the following day reported that the 1909 building sustained only smoke damage. A stained glass window designed by Tiffany Studios that was in the newer portion was spared from the fire.
A year after the fire, the university placed steel supports around the exterior of the 1885 building to prevent it from falling in; they remain in place today.
Preservation group is working with architectural firm to redesign former church building
Troppe has owned the property since January 2022. He said in a July 21, 2021, Akron Beacon Journal article that he wanted to preserve the building, given its historical significance in the city, and renovate it for businesses to occupy.
Troppe spoke on behalf of the building at the vacant buildings board meeting as a representative of the St. Paul Revival Group, saying its members have cleared the interior of the building and are preparing it for mixed-use development.
Troppe said he had a translucent roof designed for the 1885 building, similar to the Akron Art Museum’s roof, but the National Park Service denied the request to fund it because it does not match the original roof. The group is now looking for a potential tenant who would be willing to take on the multi-million dollar project.
The St. Paul Revival Group is working with architectural design firm DLR Group to redesign the former church building, Troppe said. An architect from DLR Group was also present at the Vacant Buildings Board meeting and said the firm has worked on other historical buildings in Northeast Ohio, to redesign the former church building.
Progress Through Preservation, an Akron nonprofit that advocates for the preservation and restoration of historic buildings, also spoke at the meeting in favor of sparing the building from demolition. The group has been vocal about the need to preserve the former St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for years.
The Vacant Buildings Board told Troppe he will need to meet the conditions of the 90-day reprieve in order to prevent the board from voting for the church complex to be demolished.