Galion inspector tours Central Hotel Apartments

GALION – City officials will meet again Monday at the Central Hotel Apartments on the square in downtown Galion to investigate possible structural problems at the historic building.

The apartment complex, which offers affordable housing for senior citizens, recently moved its residents to facilities elsewhere including hotels, family members' homes and other units within the building while the owners conduct structural investigations, Galion officials confirmed.

The Central Hotel was built in the late 1800s.

Galion Building Inspector Bob Johnston said Thursday that officials met at the site, and will do so again on Monday to check on "settling of the floor joists" with architectural engineers.

"There are a few structural issues," Johnston said outside the hotel Thursday. "We're going to have to figure out what we have to do here."

He declined further comment, but said the west portion of the building was evacuated as a precautionary measure.

Johnston said workers at the site are cutting out the ceiling to do inspections.

Johnston said the work has been going on for quite a while, but he was made aware of it recently and went to the site Monday.

"They repaired one area and now are looking at other areas of the building," he said.

Michael Swemba, an asset manager at the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing in Columbus, which has Central Hotel Apartments in its portfolio, said a structural issue within the building has been identified.

"We identified a particular structural concern and out of caution we sought to vacate up to 12 units," Swemba said.

"The building was built in 1852, it's well over 100 years old," he said. "We have ongoing settling concerns dating back to 2002 that we noticed as part of ongoing inspections. We then addressed what we thought were the issues in the basement. We added additional support to the structure and we thought that would take care of the issue.

"Unfortunately the settling seemingly continued. We began a new round of inspections and as part of that inspection, we were trying to be proactive and take care of the building, etc., and we identified this issue just recently, just in the past couple weeks," Swemba said.

He said representatives from ownership on Feb. 28 saw the issue firsthand. "We're coordinating this with an architect, a structural engineer as well as a contractor," he said.

Swemba said contractors want to look at the rest of the units.

Swemba said nine households have been moved to other locations at the expense of the ownership. To minimize the inconvenience, transportation and meal service also have been provided to those who had to vacate.

"Nine households (total): five households to hotels, two within the building and two households with friends or family," he said.

"We're trying to do everything we can to minimize the inconvenience," he said.

The old hotel had been vacant for years and was in danger of being demolished, despite local efforts to restore and develop the site.

In December 2002, the pieces finally came together in a plan to turn the dilapidated structure into an apartment complex. Developers received approval of $3.1 million in loans that enabled them to finally move forward on the project. Still, a planned 10-month construction timetable stretched to more than two years.

The hotel was gutted from the outside walls in. Floors, walls, plumbing, ceilings and fixtures were ripped out as contractors started from scratch. But they were careful to include many of the architectural elements of the old hotel in the new apartment complex.

The senior citizen facility opened in 2005.

The building was first used as a hardware store and later was converted to a hotel and then a restaurant.

In 2000, the Galion Good Citizens Group, made up of locals Dick Hottenroth, Bill Keir, Tom Moore, Tom Belding and Linda Chambers, purchased the building at a sheriff's sale for about $12,000. The group then worked to clear up more than $400,000 in private liens on the building.

In late 2003, the Ohio Preservation Alliance included the old building on its list of "Most Endangered Historic Sites."

Several groups looked into restoring the old hotel, but financing could never be completed until December 2002 when G. Fred Schwab and Asebrook Ltd., secured loans of more than $3 million for the project.

Construction began in 2004 and the first tenants moved into the building in 2005.

Lwhitmir@nncogannett.com

419-521-7223

Twitter: @LWhitmir