The University of Akron has a signed agreement to sell Quaker Square, the oats mill-turned-hotel and shopping center that was most recently used to house students.
The complex, at South Broadway and East Mill streets in downtown Akron, has been owned by the university since 2007, University Archivist Vic Fleischer said in an email. He said the university continued to use some floors in the distinctive, round towers as a hotel for several years. Until recently, he said, there was also office space for university departments and community organizations.
A spokesperson for the university, Cristine Boyd, said the school had been working on a contract for the sale of Quaker Square. A signed agreement to sell the complex was recently shared with the Ohio Department of Administrative Services.
Boyd did not share any details about the buyer, the proposed sale price or any plans for the buildings.
The Ohio Department of Administrative Services is responsible for selling state-owned buildings that are held for the benefit of higher-education institutions, said Pete LuPiba, a spokesperson for the Ohio Office of Budget and Management. The property will be appraised by a third-party appraiser before any sale can go through; the Summit County Fiscal Office values the property at $17.7 million.
Boyd said she expected the office’s Controlling Board to consider the sales proposal at its April 7 meeting. That approval is required before the Department of Administrative Services could sell Quaker Square. A spokesperson for that agency said he was working on getting more information about the proposed sale.
Convention center hotel could be on the table
Quaker Square’s property listing, which says it is under contract, lists six buildings that are connected by a galleria and a separate conference center. All told, the complex — built in 1900 and converted to hotel/retail use in 1981 — is 411,000 square feet, the listing says, with a 65-room hotel.
Kimberly Beckett, president of the Downtown Akron Partnership, said using the property as a hotel could help the John S. Knight Center book more conventions by having an adjacent property where people could spend the night.
“That’s what I think it wants to be,” said Dana Noel, Progress Through Preservation’s advocacy chair.
Noel said he thought a redevelopment of Quaker Square could become a “center of gravity” for the area instead of a hole in the middle of Akron.
“If they do it right, it could be a big transformation downtown,” he said. “It’s just really well-located. I think people would respond to it. If it supports a bigger, better convention business, think what that brings to the city, too.”
In addition to turning the grain silos back into a hotel, Beckett said a mixed-use option that could include retail, office and residential components would be a good use of the buildings.
“Old buildings always have challenges and costs, but also opportunities,” she said. “The neighborhood has some good bones; there’s great opportunity here.”
Any redevelopment of Quaker Square would be one of just several downtown development projects in the works, including another project with ties to the University of Akron, the Polsky Building.
University of Akron trying to reduce number of buildings, costs
Last year, Stephen Myers, the university’s chief planning and facilities officer, told Signal Akron the decision to offload Quaker Square is part of a broader university plan to reduce operating costs by decreasing the number of buildings the school must maintain.
He said that, over a decade, the university wants to eliminate 1 million square feet of space, through property sales and demolitions. The University of Akron has already demolished the Wonder Bread building, which it acquired in 2011 — at the time, the university anticipated growing to 40,000 students, but spring 2025 enrollment was about 14,000.
Noel said selling off the complex might be best for both the university and the city.
“I think it’s such an albatross at this point that they’re just desperate,” he said. “It wasn’t too long ago that it was functional. It really is an iconic building here in Akron.”
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, the complex takes up an entire city block. It was the home of Quaker Oats, and according to the application is the “only remaining visual element” of the company in Akron, where it got its start and was once the city’s biggest industry and largest single employer.
Dave Lieberth, president of the Akron History Center, said the complex’s historical significance to Akron is “incomparable.” He said he hopes any developer is thoughtful about preserving what he called the “architectural gems” that became one of the most unique hotels in the country.
“There isn’t anything like it anywhere,” he said. “There are so many interesting architectural elements that ought to be preserved.”
