What do you believe the future holds for Ohio's aging skyscrapers? I think we can all agree that pretty much anything built before WWII is of high-class and character and barring any insurmmontable circumstance, they will be continuously be maintained, updated, and rehabbed as needed. The question is what is going to happen to those built after the WWII from the 50's - 70's that are of considerably less charm? Some Cincinnati ones that come to mind are...

 

-National City Building (now owned by PNC, who already owns Central Trust)

-5/3rd Building

-Kroger HQ

-Millenium Hotel

  Depends on the economy and the need for local office space. In Cincinnati, I can imagine that all of the current skyscrapers will last for some time. I can't imagine the need for any new ones, especially since QCS will add so much space, so I don't think any of the taller buildings will be torn down for a taller one.

 

  We don't have any large scale abandonments downtown yet.

 

  About the Eighth and Linn Street area, and the PNC tower in Bond Hill I don't feel quite as good.

The quicker skyscrapers can convert to residential units the better because when the bad days come, you need a profitable strategy already in place.  I'm thinking about downtown Dayton specifically but it goes for anywhere.

I think we can all agree that pretty much anything built before WWII is of high-class and character and barring any insurmmontable circumstance, they will be continuously be maintained, updated, and rehabbed as needed.

 

This hasn't been the case in Dayton.  The following prewar buildings are either closed or largely vacant:

 

1. Commercial Building (closed in the 1970s)

2. Lindsay Building (closed in the 1970s)

3. former KeyBank Building (closed this year except for ground floor retail)

4. Center City Offices (old UB Building)( mostly vacant except for ground floor retail)

5. Fidelity (still open, rumored with high vacancy)

6. Barclay (still open)

7. Riebold (partly converted into government offices and partly vacant)

8. Conover (converted into RTA offices and partially for lease)

9. Hulman (still open, now the Republic Building, bank HQ).

 

The fate of the prewar high-rise hotels:

 

1. Biltmore (converted into housing)

3. Holden (converted into housing)

4. Van Cleve (demolished)

5. Miami (demolished)

6. Schwind/Moraine (converted into housing)

7. Algonquin (remains a hotel, now the Doubletree)

 

 

 

The question is what is going to happen to those built after the WWII from the 50's - 70's that are of considerably less charm?

 

In the postwar era (1960s & early 70s), four high-rise hotels were built in Dayton.

 

2 were demolished

1 was converted into housing

1 remains a hotel.

 

Most of the postwar high-rises are occupied, interestingly some of the older ones are doing OK in occupancy, like 44 W Fourth, built in 1967 and the second postwar skysrcaper in the city.  One of the newest, the old Citizens Federal building of around 1990, formerly 5/3 Building, has high vacancy since its major tenant , 5/3 Bank, moved down the street to the once equally vacant One Dayton Centre.  Of the older postwar high rises (1960s/70s) that might have higher vacany is the 111 Building.

 

 

 

What happened here was the loss of a major corporation who vacated their skyscraper, combined with bank mergers, left a floating "vacancy hole" in the downtown market.  This was combined with business just not wanting to locate downtown, with a few exceptions (like law firms and non-profits).  One of the traditional downtown tenants where medical professionals and insurance agencies.  These have nearly totally left downtown.

 

Something must be going right in downtown Dayton though. 

 

For some reason Caresource just built a new 9-story office building downtown and residential occupancy is floating somewhere between 92-95% (apartments & condos).

 

Hopefully the 5,000 residential unites being planned for Greater Downtown Dayton will actually happen.

^

Yeah, that was an interesting article at the link.  I actually know Burton Clemans as an occasional drinking companion since I used  to go to The Century. He hung out there, too, since it was close to his loft.

 

There must be something with the economics of downtown housing here that stalled the conversion trend in the mid-2000s.  There was a steady stream of new projects until around 2005.  Then  it all stopped.  They say 5,000 units planned but also say what was developed was priced too high.  It could be that those price points are what's needed to make downtown housing projects economically viable, so the developer can turn a profit after covering his or her finance, acquisition, and construction costs.  They talk about an equity fund, but there was a loan pool (actually a committment to finance, not an true pool) that supported the previous conversions.

 

Maybe a lesson learned there, somewhere.

 

Anway, this is topic drift.

 

Caresource is like the Mead Tower or the P&G Towers in Cincy or the Fiberglas Tower in Toledo, a high-rise purpose-built as a corporate HQ. 

 

I recall Caresource was based in Richmond, VA before coming to Dayton, so perhaps their management, being outsiders, didn't have the anti-downtown cultural baggage the locals have, hence less resistance to locating downton. 

 

The vacancy situation isn't around something like Caresource, its about the downtown commercial office market.  I alluded to cultural issues, but it could simply be that Dayton isn't big enough, economically speaking, to generate enough demand to absorb the glut of downtown office space that came online with the bank consolidations and corporate departures. This could be an issue for other cities, too, like Toledo.

 

 

And there was some overbuilding, with One Dayton Centre and the Citizens Federal Building coming online at the same time.  Reports at the time said that the developer of One Dayton Centre wouldn't have built if he had known about the Citizens Federal Building.  So even in better times there was a glut, which was excaberated by the economic changes of the past years.

 

 

To make that price-point economically viable without forfeiting what urban dwellers want, they'll need to be a substantial investment in a larger number of units than has been developed downtown in the past.  That's one reason why my mind drifts toward Mendelson's.  I wonder if retrofitting the Citizen Federal building to residential units could garner a similar economic advantage.

Time to invest in Home Depot.

Working in an historic landmark skyscraper, I want to comment on what it's like here..

 

I hope it doesn't go anytime soon (if it does, it would be due to lack of profit).

 

It has many offices including law firms, lobbying agencies, media companies, labor organizations, human rights organizations, CPAs and the like; but I'd say half the building suites are empty. Word on the street is management doesn't care because a company in Chicago who owns it, just writes it off as a loss. The only thing that sucks (and perhaps what drives away tenants in the first place) is that every company who leases space, has to pay utilities for space that isn't being used. You pay utilities per sq. footage but the management factors in what they are billed for their unused space, when they bill you. Thus, utilities are about as high as your rent here.

 

It is considered Class B office space. There is absolutely no reason for it to be considered class B in my mind, as its building materials with its ornamentation and detailing inside and out are high quality, incredible and unique. Even the craftsmanship of the elevator doors is fantastic and irreplaceable. Technologically, its very up-to-date so no problem there.

 

The only thing wrong with it is the location. It's in the heart of downtown yet lacks some essential amenities within the 15 minute threshold that most people are willing to sacrifice from A to B. However, that's not this tower's fault, it's the fault of the city. There are many amenities nearby but not as close as they should be.

 

They also don't utilize the internal restaurant space because tenure is too low to support a thriving restaurant/bar (management's fault).

 

Another factor when deciding if space is "Class A, B or C" is the quality of tenants. Perhaps its considered class B because the firms who occupy the space are generally small professional firms, satellite branches of large corporations and state-wide organizations that only use the space part-time. However, my creative mind tells me that there's a lot of opportunity of efficient collaboration between all the firms that exist here to work on projects. Sooo much opportunity. It's an incubator, really. I just don't get why smaller firms as tenants get frowned upon. The only reason they should be frowned upon is if their credit is terrible.

 

The floors are set up to have individual suites. There aren't open floor plans that modern large corporations favor (higher visibility from large open rooms prevents gossip, slacking off and increases chances of supervision).

 

One thing most architecture historians overlook is how filing on computers vs. in cabinets has changed architecture and urban planning permanently. If it weren't for computer filing, the office I work at would need a suite at least 3x as big as this one. There are already tons of files and folders laying around, cluttering up the place but you wouldn't even be able to move in here if it weren't for our computer hard drives.

Cleveland:

 

Terminal Tower in Cleveland will complete a 5-yr restoration in mid 2010. The restoration/renovate of Ohio's most iconic building is thorough and well-done. Forest City Enterprises spared no expense in ensuring that this building will be well-equipped to face the next 50 years.

 

Ameritrust Tower:

 

We're still waiting for the rumored plans to bear fruit. The Breuer skyscraper is a linchpin in connecting the budding lower Euclid Ave residential and entertainment district with the established Playhouse Square.

While cities may seem permanent, a group called Architecture 2030 claims that a majority of the buildings in cities today will be rebuilt by the year 2035.

 

If that's true about Cincinnati, Toledo, and Cleveland, then they are going to be much uglier cities...

 

I guess renovations are out of the cards? Seeing what has been happening lately in Ohio, I have got to think we will work hard to save our historic architecture. Everyone knows we mostly suck at designing new buildings. We're never going to come close to our Art Deco, Neoclassical, Victorian, or Italianate ever again. I sure hope we can save the majority of our buildings, and I'm optimistic we will. I'd actually say it's more likely 75% of existing buildings are renovated and 25% are rebuilt.

 

I agree. In the future.,...we will not only be judged by what we create...but also by what we refuse to destroy. Hmmm.....where did I hear that before!I know it applied to the environment, but it can also apply to buildings themselves.

A whole thread on this at skyscrapercity:

 

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=811198