ASHLAND — Ashland City Council is ready for the next step in its plan to renovate the nearly 140-year-old building at 16 East Main St.
The city applied for a $170,000 grant through the Ohio Department of Development’s Community Development Block Grant Downtown Target Opportunity Program, which requires matching funds.
The city received that grant recently, and this week, gave the administration the go-ahead to advertise for bids on the interior work.
Ashland officials have been waiting for the grant to proceed on the project, which has been dormant since Seckel Group Architects finished exterior renovations to the tune of $225,000 in 2021.
The exterior of the project was partially covered by another state grant.
Interior renovations will include redoing the wooden floors, tin ceilings, improvement to the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, adding a restroom and a break room and leaving the floor plan open.
On the second and third floor, Miller said the work will include demolishing the interior to make it ready for a new owner or renter to renovate.
The work would also include the installation of a handicap accessible ramp at the building’s front entrance. However, the inside of the building would not have an elevator, Miller said.
The mayor said the city’s estimate for the interior renovation is $425,000.
Miller said the city, per the rules outlined in the CDBG program, cannot occupy the building.
So he has been showing the building to potential buyers and renters, up to 20 different “interested parties.”
But “that is still up in the air,” Miller said. “We can sell it, we can lease it, we just can’t put a government office in it.”
The city of Ashland originally became interested in the crumbling building located on the north side of Main Street just west of Whitaker-Myers Insurance because of its potential safety hazard in 2018.
The Italianate-style building has been standing since at least 1884, according to records from Ashland Main Street. Property records show the city bought the three-story building for $12,000. Miller said that figure represented what the previous owners owed in delinquent taxes.
The inside of the building is in rough shape. The floors are uneven, the paint is pealing and the building’s wiring is exposed and dangling.
“Obviously, it’s not in move-in condition right now, but we’ll see what happens,” Miller said in a separate interview with Ashland Source. “When it’s done, it’ll be the nicest building downtown.”
Miller invoked Abraham Lincoln’s words when he walked through the building on a sunny Wednesday morning in February.
“(Abraham Lincoln) said something to the effect, ‘the object of government is to do what people can’t do for themselves’ — well, this is kind of a version of that,” Miller said. “The private market was going to leave it set because there was no one willing to take on the risk of that project.”
Lincoln’s quote is “the legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not so well do, for themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities.”
