The work of Ohio’s Foreclosure Prevention Task Force is nearing its end, and a report of its findings and recommendations will soon be making its way to Governor Strickland’s desk.

Among a variety of responses to the unquestioned statewide crisis in the area of foreclosures, which involved an amazing 60,728 houses in Ohio during the first half of 2007 alone, is a recommendation that the State create a fund to financially assist communities in redeveloping older neighborhoods – including substantial money, as reported by the Columbus Dispatch, to, among other goals, “tear down blighted and abandoned houses...”

The work of the task force is part of a multi-year push by a variety of interests to address the issue, which is as critical in Ohio as anywhere else in the country. The Chair of the task force has been careful to emphasize that any demolition decisions would be up to local communities, and apparently demolition or other strategies to redevelop entire neighborhoods will have a higher priority than addressing individual problem properties.

Across the country, cities have adopted massive demolition strategies to encouage redevelopment in problematic areas. The strategy recommended by the Task Force seems designed to boost communities like Youngstown, which has set out on a purposeful course to remove a very large number of older properties in a programmatic and designed fashion.

As the majority of Ohio’s listings on the National Register of Historic Places (including those in National Register Districts) are residential structures, the future of the state's older neighborhoods should be important to advocates of preservation and revitalization. The non-profit statewide preservation community was somewhat frustrated at the National Vacant Properties Forum in 2005 by the lack of integration of preservation-based considerations into the vacant properties discussion. Time will tell how this new strategy will impact Ohio’s older neighborhoods and the history that lives there.

Photo: House demolition - tobo/Creative Commons License

Friends to Save the Arcade, the grassroots organization that is working feverishly to identify and promote a future for the landmark Dayton Arcade, has announced plans for two important events in the coming weeks.

On August 30, the group plans to lead a public rally of support on Dayton’s Courthouse Square. The event will feature entertainment and speakers explaining the importance of the Arcade to Downtown Dayton and its redevelopment potential. Then, on September 14, the group has secured permission to actually offer guided tours of the site, including the Arcade’s famed soaring glass-ceilinged atrium – an event identified on the group’s website as “…an extremely rare occurrence.” Click here to access the Friends to Save the Arcade website and for details on these events.

The Dayton Arcade, which closed in the 1980s and has been vacant since 1991, is one of the most important examples of a shopping venue constructed in many Ohio communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is actually composed of several interlocking structures built between 1902 and 1908. Like its well-known cousin in Cleveland, the Arcade was an early “mixed-use” development, and included retail, office and residential components. Click here to view an amazingly detailed chronicle of the history of the Arcade Buildings.

The Dayton Arcade has been included on the List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites since 2005.

Photo: Third Street Arcade entrance, Downtown Dayton - OZinOH/Creative Commons License

Earlier this week, the Columbus RetroMetro blog featured an interactive map of the area of East Broad Street which is currently the focus of concern by many in Columbus’ historic preservation community.

At issue is the planned demolition of the Joseph Firestone mansion, which is called for in expansion plans of the Columbus Foundation, the mansion’s neighbor to the west. The project in question involves ongoing restoration of the Columbus Foundation headquarters, which previously served as the Ohio Governor’s Mansion from 1920 through 1957.

Energetic discussion about the planned demolition is currently underway in Columbus Underground, a local blog, which features a photograph of the house. While an article about the controversy was published in the August 22 Columbus Dispatch, the online link to that article is not currently working.

The revealing RetroMetro map includes the ability to access site plans for the project (click on the middle map marker), which apparently involve the creation of additional parking and green space. The plans seem to beg the question as to why an important piece of local history must necessarily be lost in this process.

Photo:  Site of Columbus Foundation Redevelopment Project/Google Maps

Dayton.  Royce Yeater, Director of the Midwest Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has written an op-ed piece in the Dayton Daily News calling for the University of Dayton to preserve “Building 26” in their building plans. The structure was the location for development of a code-breaking machine that had substantial impact on the course of World War II.

Cincinnati.  From Building Cincinnati – The American Can Building has been designated a city landmark in part to qualify the property for the new Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit. Development of the property will lead to 93 apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail space.

Also -- CETConnect, a service of Cincinnati Public Media, is featuring a pair of videos dealing with Ohio history – one on the history of Cincinnati’s Rookwood Company, and the other taking a look at Neoclassical architecture around the country and in Ohio’s Queen City.

Troy.  The Dayton Real Estate Blog reports on a trip to downtown Troy, and includes photos of the decorated WACO airplane miniatures on display there.

Oberlin.  Post Carbon Cities reports that the East College Street Project in Oberlin has registered to as a LEED-ND (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development) pilot project, a program of the US Green Building Council, Congress for the New Urbanism and Natural Resources Defense Council to provide certification to developments that exemplify a new national neighborhood design standard. The East College Street Project is new development which is unique integrated into the fabric of Oberlin, one of the state’s most historic communities. This is the project website.

Youngstown.  The Steel Building Insider Blog looks at efforts to assess the potential of an 87-year-old steel frame industrial building in Youngstown. The local community improvement corporation is seeking to preserve the facade of the structure in any renovation/re-use project.

Right after we published an entry on MyHometownOhio singing their praises, the Toledo Blade posted another front-page story on historic preservation in Ohio in their Sunday, August 19 edition. Here is the start of that article:

Politics drives historic preservation: Question of demolition often left to mercy of lawmakers’ whims
By: Jim Provance/Blade Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - The state of Ohio has been willing to reach into its pockets, sometimes very deeply into its pockets, to preserve and restore historic structures.

But which projects are deemed worthy is largely a subjective political process left to the whims of lawmakers who control the state's capital budget, a two-year blueprint setting borrowing priorities for brick-and-mortar projects across the state.

Ohio has poured hundreds of millions of dollars over the years into restoring the Ohio Statehouse, opera houses and theaters, train stations, homesteads of historic figures, libraries, schoolhouses, and even the occasional county courthouse.

But for every preservation triumph - be it Toledo's Valentine Theatre in Toledo, or Adena, Gov. Thomas Worthington's mansion in Chillicothe - there's an Ironton High School, the classical-style 1922 building that preservationists wanted to save but recently fell victim to the wrecking ball...

You can finish the article by clicking here.

Its certainly not historic preservation, but the plans of developer Jeff Edwards for a nine-block area of surface parking in downtown Columbus might be described as... preservation-esque.

The first buildings in a $70 million project are now under construction, and are hidden behind a gigantic canvas which displays a rendering of the finished structures. These are the beginnings of what is envisioned – and plans show – as a “neighborhood” constructed from scratch, right in he middle of downtown, only a long block north and east of the Ohio Statehouse. The idea is an intriguing one, as it involves replacing vacant blocks in downtown with what those blocks used to have – residential buildings built on a human scale that suggest nineteenth and early-twentieth century design. The result will be 260 units that provide an outstanding urban location but with standard suburban amenities, such as garages and gardens. The project has the financial backing and support of the City of Columbus.

Click here to visit Neighborhood Launch.

The question of large-scale downtown infill is an interesting one, and has been tackled by both urban and smaller Ohio communities. In Hudson, a community of 25,000 in northeast Ohio, the “First & Main” project is still humming along in its third year. A mixed-use development which emphasizes retail and dining, the project does a limited number of residential units, each constructed in a design reflective of the community. The retail component is designed to integrate with the contiguous traditional downtown shops in Hudson, and both areas cross-market the other.

Click here to visit First & Main.

Photo: First buildings under construction in the Neighborhood Launch project - Preservation Ohio File Photo/taken August 17, 2007

The Ohio Department of Development has unveiled a new site which allows applicants for the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit to instantly check the status of their application.  The list provides an interesting look at the potential of the new tax credit to revitalize downtowns and communities.

Included on the site are the names and addresses of projects, the estimated totals of qualified rehabilitation and total rehabilitation project expenses, an indication of whether or not the project is “staged” (meaning that completion is envisioned over a 60-month versus 24-month time frame), and the application status.

Since our article on July 30, several additional applications have been received, and some  applications have been withdrawn. At present, approximately 70 applications are under consideration, representing several hundred million dollars of planned project expenditures.

Click here to access the new site.

Photo:  Shawnee Hotel, Springfield, site of proposed Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit project -- Preservation Ohio File Photo

Fantastic coverage of the Seneca County Courthouse situation continues in the Toledo Blade today with three feature articles.  All are excellent reading and provide an in-depth look at the ramifications of demolition.  To access the articles, click here, and follow the links in the main story.

In a front-page article, The Blade looks at a state-funded courthouse restoration program in Texas, with additional comments from professionals in Arkansas and elsewhere.  The article continues to discuss the specific impact that loss of this iconic building would have on downtown Tiffin – a community which markets itself using its history.  Additional articles focus on the architect of the courthouse, Elijah Myers, as well as the fate of courthouses in Ohio County, West Virginia (Wheeling) and Wood County, Ohio (Bowling Green).

These articles are the latest in an outstanding series of informative articles and very direct editorials which demonstrate that part of what is at stake in this decision is the ability of Tiffin, and any other community that might choose to follow Seneca County’s lead, to market itself effectively in the current economy.  Local courthouse advocates continue to correctly maintain that the only thing worse than a deteriorating historic courthouse is no historic courthouse at all, because demolition removes potential for success.

Kudos to The Blade for its excellent coverage of this important issue.

Photo: Wood County Courthouse, Bowling Green - fusionpanda/Creative Commons License