Saved: Ohio's 1884 Seneca County Courthouse
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Sept. 3, 2009
It was a long shot, but a group in Ohio has saved a historic courthouse from demolition.
Two years ago, Seneca County's three commissioners voted to raze the 1884 county courthouse located in the city of Tiffin. Last month, after preservation consultants presented a plan for its $7.49 million restoration, the same commissioners reversed their decision, voting 3-0 to proceed with restoration. All work must be completed by October 2010.
Preservation consultant Franklin Conaway was asked to study the Beaux Arts courthouse by Ohio's state historic preservation office. "I quickly determined that the courthouse was very sound structurally, and suspected that inadequate previous studies had been done," he says. Conaway is now head of the Seneca County Courthouse and Downtown Redevelopment Group.
The trick to saving a doomed building, Conaway says, is to "buy enough time to do the type of analysis that needs to be done to present the real facts to the decision makers. I liken it to an ER patient [in] the hospital. The longer you keep the patient alive, the greater their chances of survival."
The success story in Ohio reflects a national trend, says Jennifer Sandy, program officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Midwest Office in Chicago.
"Nationally, we've seen very few courthouses demolished in recent years. People seem to understand that historic courthouses help provide a unique sense of place to their downtown districts, and really are the heart of many historic communities. No Ohio courthouses have been demolished since 1974, so we are overjoyed that the Seneca County Courthouse has been saved."
Tiffin's architectural review board last year voted to deny a demolition permit for the court house, providing needed time to study the building. Conaway and architect Robert Loversidge presented their findings to commissioners in July.
"They studied every bolt, every screw, every dime that would have to be expended on the rehab, and they gave the county commission a presentation that was irrefutable about the cost," says Joyce Barrett, executive director of Heritage Ohio, which organized a "This Place Matters" rally last year in support of the Seneca County Courthouse. "In my professional career I've never seen anything like that amount of detail, but that's what it took the county commissioners to be comfortable about the cost [of renovation]."
There's more work ahead for courthouse supporters, who must now raise money and apply for grants to fund restoration efforts. Says Barrett: "It's like a new beginning."
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Comments
Submitted by Brian at: September 6, 2009
Well it looks like a fantastic building! Buildings like that were completely blown to smithereens in WWII Europe, yet they have been rebuilt. There's not much reason to demolish a building like that which hasn't even seen the ravages of war.