Posted May 15, 201114 yr I went to Toledo (again) from May 6-8, 2011. It's my third time in 2 years visiting the city and it was, once again, an awesome time. Took in the Erie Street Market, a couple of Mud Hens games and the Toledo Museum of Art. Without further ado... the second part of my photo tour, we are in the Old West end... Interesting fact: Old West Toledo has the highest concentration of Victorian homes and mansions in the United States east of the Mississippi River. Toledo Spain Plaza Homes on Collingwood Blvd. in Old West Toledo Apartment Building The spectacular Mansion View Inn Central United Methodist Church Collingwood Manor in need of some work... Church of the Living God First Unitarian Church This house needs some work... St. Marks Episcopal Church The impressive First Congregational Church, built in 1916 Ohio Plaque for the First Congregational Church... The Amazing Collingwood Arts Center building, first built in 1905... Scott High School, built in 1913... Toledo Museum of Art
May 15, 201114 yr Right now I am BEATING myself severely, because I didn't get pictures of the Rosary Cathedral, which is probably that church a guy in the area was talking about to me as he noticed I was taking pictures. I thought it was the First Congregational Church. ARGH!
May 16, 201114 yr Great stuff...I really like Toledo's West End. Scott High's preservation was a big win; too bad Waite (its twin) may not fair as well. Or Libbey. Collingwood Manor in need of some work... I think this is marked for demolition.
May 16, 201114 yr Great stuff...I really like Toledo's West End. Scott High's preservation was a big win; too bad Waite (its twin) may not fair as well. Or Libbey. Collingwood Manor in need of some work... I think this is marked for demolition. Waite was saved and is still part of the long-term plan for the district (it helps that it's the only high school in East Toledo which makes bussing students to other schools a nightmare). By "long-term", I mean five years. With the plummeting student population at TPS, nobody really knows beyond the scope of a couple years. Nearly half the district is now in charter schools, so TPS tries to demolish school buildings immediately after closing them to avoid any competition. It's a wonderful use of our tax dollars! Libbey is scheduled for demolition this June. It's time to get some pictures before it comes down! Toledo has a couple dozen historic schools marked for demolition (some already came down in 2009 and 2010 using "stimulus" dollars). All of them are gorgeous and in good structural condition (they were built to last centuries). Toledo followed the Detroit path of public school building in the early 20th century, which meant sparing no expense and constructing ultra-thick walls that could probably take a tornado or hurricane. Thankfully, residents in neighborhoods with historic schools marked for demolition are pissed as hell. There have been many protests. Naturally, people see this school demolition/rebuilding program as a big waste of tax dollars that doesn't fix any of the core issue in the district. And now it's also viewed as a defensive act against charter schools. Collingwood Manor was scheduled for demolition last year. I have no idea what the current status is. Something must have held it up, but it does look like it's in worse condition than the last time I saw it. This is a really tragic one to see go. I love Toledo's courtyard apartments.
May 22, 201114 yr Thanks for the pics. Gotta say, though, that the city's continuing deterioration puzzles me. There's some great housing stock available for really cheap. If I were a young guy looking to start a family on a shoestring, I'd make a beeline for Toledo because of value-for-money. How come ambitious youngsters haven't tuned in to the place?
May 23, 201114 yr Great stuff! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
May 23, 201114 yr Thanks for the pics. Gotta say, though, that the city's continuing deterioration puzzles me. There's some great housing stock available for really cheap. If I were a young guy looking to start a family on a shoestring, I'd make a beeline for Toledo because of value-for-money. How come ambitious youngsters haven't tuned in to the place? $$$ A lot of them speak of all that is golden about historic preservation, but you either purchase something that's been restored, which is a lot of money most do not have (but freely spend at the bars every weekend), or you restore it yourself, where you'll spend a lot of money and every weekend working on it.
May 23, 201114 yr great job singling out some of those beautiful homes. this area is a real treasure chest of grand housing. i would note that there are some areas of significant urban/density in the old west end too - where the homes are clustered closer together than they generally appear here. also, the cac is a fantastic magnet of support for the local artists of nw ohio: http://www.collingwoodartscenter.org/public/
May 23, 201114 yr Thanks for the pics. Gotta say, though, that the city's continuing deterioration puzzles me. There's some great housing stock available for really cheap. If I were a young guy looking to start a family on a shoestring, I'd make a beeline for Toledo because of value-for-money. How come ambitious youngsters haven't tuned in to the place? It's all about money. The job market is horrendous in Toledo. This isn't the kind of city where you can fall back on retail or food service to survive if you lose your job. It seems all the best young people are leaving or trying to leave. Out-migration of the smart and talented is unbelievable. There is very little in-migration to offset it. This is a regional thing, not just Toledo. The story is repeated all over Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan (Detroit, Sandusky, Fremont, Monroe, etc.). But the population decline is actually much slower than the jobs decline (metro Toledo lost 14% of its jobs in the past decade, but nowhere near that many people). As a result, competition is fierce everywhere in Toledo. This is a totally different city from just five years ago. Anybody who moves here should do their homework first. Even people who have good jobs know there is no security, and thus are very risk-averse when it comes to spending money. People don't have money to fix up houses, and even if they did, they would hesitate. It's actually more common to have overseas landlords from Europe, Canada, and Australia move in and convert them into rental units. Hell, even Michiganders are doing it now. They view Toledo's housing prices as a great opportunity to make money. Toledo has abnormally low rental vacancies, so there is a lot of demand for that. Median rents are way too high in the market due to the low supply while median home sale prices are too low due to the glut on the market. It's pretty obvious how you can make money off of this. The way a lot of places get preserved is not in the traditional sense of making them historically accurate. It's more along the lines of saving what you can while cutting them up into rental units. Even a significant portion of the Old West End has been converted into rental units in the past decade. These gorgeous Victorian mansions aren't really doable for the average American today. They're jaw-dropping homes, but just too big. During the first preservation wave in the 70's and 80's, lots of people decided to keep them as accurate as possible. Now, the most common thing you see is dividing them up by floor into rental units. Most of them are three stories, so landlords can live on the first floor while upper floors become rentals. Having your own floor would be nice. There are some real bargains on the third-floor units in the old mansions. I've seen some go for $300 a month! If you can land one where the third floor has slanted ceilings and an irregular floorplate, you can save a ton of money. They're still pretty big too and usually have full baths installed. Most people want the regular-shaped units on the lower floors. Those typically go for about $450-700 depending on bathrooms and bedrooms (sometimes there will be three bedrooms on the floor). By Toledo standards, this is pretty average, but you get way more bang for your buck in the Old West End than anywhere else in the city. We're talking better materials, incredible woodwork, and more square footage. Downtown is considerably more expensive for what you get because that area has the lowest rental vacancy in the city. You pay a premium to be by amenities. In terms of renting, the Old West End might be best deal in the whole state of Ohio, perhaps the entire country. It's a pretty safe neighborhood, and though lacking in amenities, it's easy to get to Uptown and Downtown. In terms of buying, do it if you can renovate it yourself. These are not easy projects. You hear of a lot of stories in Toledo of people buying up $75k Victorian mansions, and then becoming completely overwhelmed by how much work and money it takes to bring them up to modern standards.
May 23, 201114 yr i would note that there are some areas of significant urban/density in the old west end too - where the homes are clustered closer together than they generally appear here. This is true. Density varies greatly. The "wood" streets tend to have larger setbacks, but the actual streets are narrow throughout the neighborhood. Some of the streets have much smaller setbacks. This creates considerable density. What's interesting is that while the population density is there for a walkable commercial district, it still has not happened. The Old West End developed as an early streetcar neighborhood since it was beyond walking distance from downtown. While it did have more commercial buildings at one time, it was meant mainly as residential. It never developed a commercial district on the level of East Toledo, Lagrange, the Five Points, the Old South End, or areas of West-Central Toledo (like Dorr, Detroit, and Nebraska). Nearby Uptown had the city's best mixed-use development (at peak, it was like Elmwood Village Buffalo), so the Old West End's proximity to this may have limited its commercial potential. Historically, the commercial development that did exist was largely an extension of Uptown and Warren-Sherman. Sadly, those areas have had massive losses (Warren-Sherman was just decimated by urban renewal and Uptown was a piecemeal collapse). That's at least part of the reason the Old West End feels "cut off." Those border districts no longer exist. You pretty much have to go downtown for anything other than the bars on Adams Street. But I think this has kept rents low. The fact you sacrifice some urban living amenities makes it cheaper to live there.
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