My answer is YES!

 

Should city raze Swallen's?

City Council discusses the future of the building, which has been empty since 1992.

By Ed Richter

 

Staff Writer

 

Thursday, July 05, 2007

 

It has been a question Middletown City Council has wrestled with for about a decade — what to do with the former Swallen's building.

 

The four-story, 170,000 square-foot building at the corner of Broad Street and Manchester Avenue has been empty since the store closed in May 1992. The former department store chain filed for bankruptcy in 1995 and the building has been owned by the city since 1997 — because the city owned the land the building sat on.

 

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2871 or [email protected].

"My answer is YES!"

 

LOL!  - not the the answer one expects from a person named "PreservationRestoration".

 

I bought a lot of records from that Swallens store.    But I'm not sure it fits in with the archecture of the city anymore, so demoing it is not a bad idea. 

 

I just don't see M-town spending $800k now (which it doesn't have) to save $30k/yr.

 

^^^

It's not a structure I deem worth preseving.  It's not historic.  It's a big block of unusable concrete. 

 

They could do it through bonds and use the cost savings to pay down the bonds.  That's pretty much what they did with the City Centre Mall.

Wow. Do you have photographs of the building's exterior (and interior)? I love reading and hearing about downtown department stores, closed or active! We had one in downtown Ashland that was pretty much (and still is, to some extent), a white elephant. Six-story department store (Parson's) who constructed a seven-story parking garage (huge for a city that had a population of around 25,000) for the store. The department store closed in the early 1990s when Wal-Mart moved in and is now a furniture store. The parking garage is vastly underutilized (all of the rented spots can fit on one floor).

I wouldn't say Swallens was a department store, it was more like a multi-layered Kmart. The interior is very raw--lots of concrete--and the outside is cinder block with verical slots. I can remember shopping at the Middletown location only once (I was five when it closed), but many times at the Tri-County location, which I think was open until 1995. Tri-County had five levels, two below ground and three above. Like the Middletown store, there was no elevator and you had to climb a wide steel staircase between the floors.

^^

Agreed.  The Middletown store had a very "unfinished" feel to it.  I remember shopping there frequently.  Mostly for electronics.  I think the Middletown store also stayed open until 1995.  They did a major downsizing and focused mostly on electronics on two levels.  But yes, they had everything.  Carpet, furniture, clothes, groceries. 

Surprisingly, there aren't any pictures on this site of the building. 

 

Here is the fact sheet the city put out when trying to give the building away.  A few pictures there.

http://www.middletownedc.org/forms/Swallens_Fact_Sheet1.pdf

 

Also, here is a picture of the building from Verity Parkway.  It had an exterior entrance on Verity.  The mall's entrace faced what was/is now again Broad Street. 

Wow. I must see this firsthand. That is one awesome, but wholly out-of-character and cheap building.

You are correct.  If you think the outside was bad, the inside is much worse.

 

The outside always reminded me of a really cheap arena. 

 

But remember, the idea was that this was a "mall building."  So the true front of the building faced the mall concourse.  But it true Swallen fashion, it was cheap too lol.

 

There have been a lot of "plans" for the building.  First a convention center.  Then the Middletown Area Senior Citizens tried to buy the building from the city for $250,000.  The city turned them down.  Said it was worth more.  Now the seniors are moving out of downtown to a location on the east-side of town.  A group wanted to make a big antique/craft mall out of it.  City told them no and wouldn't sell it to them.  Tried to give the building away.  Not takens.

 

Tear it down.

I wandered around the garage today and have determined it is just one big wall separating downtown; the garage is terribly outdated, dirty, and dingy.

 

The garage spans two blocks. A large section is now exposed after the 1923 YMCA was demolished for a parking lot in 2005.

 

The mall must have run right under the garage, you can see the roofline above the street. Swallens is to the left.

 

Swallens

 

Main Street garage entrance

 

 

These buildings will be exposed if the garage comes down.

 

 

 

Cinery Building

 

 

Manchester Inn with historic YMCA site in front.

 

Swallens with new entrance/wall built after mall's demolition,

 

New YMCA

 

Masonic Temple

 

Sorg Paper

 

S. Main & N. Main

 

The 1970's

 

Broad Street

 

Ace Hardware building

 

 

Signs are outdated, and rusty!

 

 

Verity Parkway could use a boost.

 

Port Middletown park, Pawn Shop

 

Eagles, Park Terrace

 

These building will be exposed as well.

 

\

 

 

The city built a new elevator shaft with the mall's removal, and they did a nice job with the fence!

 

YAY!

 

Ace, again

 

 

Mural hides garage

 

 

Deterioration on the Verity ramp

 

An inviting streetscape!

 

YAY!

 

That is... cheapness.

 

Was the mall inside a newer structure with the department store part of it all? Or was it just a bunch of interconnected older buildings? This seems like it would be a good trip to make, just to see this downtown relic firsthand.

The mall was both new and old. The concept was to enclose two intersecting streets and provide a climate controlled shopping center. Swallens and the garage were new construction built as part of the mart project. Here are some photos: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=6184.0

 

The mall unforunately took a number of buildings with it, especially between Broad and Main on Central Avenue.

I wandered around the garage today and have determined it is just one big wall separating downtown; the garage is terribly outdated, dirty, and dingy.

Agree 100%.  Removing the parking structure would really open up the view from Broad Street to Donham Plaza and the civic buildings in that area.  The garage makes it seem so separated.

 

Nice pictures, btw.  Especially of Broad Street, the Plaza and Port Middletown Park.  I know what I'm going to do on my next trip into town.  I will be on top oof the parking garage LOL.

 

But this shot is my fav:

 

What you see here is the upstairs of the Quiznos building, which for several years was an "urban loft" for Tom and Peggy Blakely before they renovated a building on Main Street as their home.    I just love the angle that's captured with this picture.

 

I wonder if the owners of the Dohn's Hardware building know that they can get a GRANT (i.e. won't have to pay it back) from the city to help remove the ugly blue sliding from the building?  If not, someone from the city should tell them!

 

 

Here is an aerial view.  You can see Swallens attached to the parking structure:

 

They could make it a fundraiser and sell sledgehammers or sell chances to operate the bulldozer or wrecking ball.  Tear the thing down NOW!

They could make it a fundraiser and sell sledgehammers or sell chances to operate the bulldozer or wrecking ball.  Tear the thing down NOW!

 

That does sound like fun!  :)  However, I'll bet that it's a liability nightmare.

Too bad Swallen's isn't in business anymore, because I have a great ad campaign for them. "Other stores are spit. Swallen's is a fine wine. Spit or Swallen's?"

Demolition of parking garage, Swallens site to be cheaper than expected

Bids come in below estimates

 

By Ryan Gauthier, Staff Writer

 

MIDDLETOWN — Demolition work on the city parking garage will likely include the removal of the former Swallens Building, with bids coming in substantially below estimates.

 

Bids for the project came in Thursday, April 8, at nearly $250,000 under initial projections. Tearing down both the parking garage and Swallens Building together will cost the city slightly more than $950,000, according to Public Works & Utilities Director Dave Duritsch.

 

http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/middletown-news/demolition-of-parking-garage-swallens-site-to-be-cheaper-than-expected-651480.html

The City of Middletown has been holding a former department store and parking garage that were originally part of their downtown City Center Mall which covered Central Avenue and Broad Street for nearly three decades. After several years of debate, the structures were finally torn down in recent months to alleviate their continued upkeep costs.

 

Before (north side)

 

Demolition (north side)

 

 

 

Gone (north side)

 

Before (east side)

 

 

Demolition (east side)

 

 

 

 

Before (Swallen's)

 

 

Gone (Swallen's)

 

 

Demolition (Dohn's Hardware in distance)

 

Remains (Dohn's Hardware to fix)

 

 

Before (north view)

 

Gone (north view)

 

Before (south view)

 

Gone (south view)

 

Oh wow.  Finally that thing is gone!

I suppose the mural was destroyed?

 

 

I liked it.

I suppose the mural was destroyed?

 

Fortunately, it was taken down and is in storage. It will be repaired and reinstalled somewhere else downtown.

good riddance to that hulking piece of crap

So what's to become of the land the mall was on?

 

 

So what's to become of the land the mall was on?

 

The mall concourses reverted to their original street function. The garage area will be paved over as surface lots. The former Swallens dept store site will be greenspace for the time being.

Good riddance. And thanks for the pics. 

 

And pray for good redevelopment :)

 

This reminds me of the Columbus City Ctr but on a smaller scale.

And they both met the same fate.

I'm guessing they're from about the same era? (1980s?)

This reminds me of the Columbus City Ctr but on a smaller scale.

And they both met the same fate.

I'm guessing they're from about the same era? (1980s?)

 

Sort of, except for the fact that the mall concourses in Middletown actually covered over the streets. Middletown came about 15 years earlier as well.

Sorg Paper

Ironically, this is now gone too.