Old Lear building to be salvaged for raw materials

ZANESVILLE – The old Lear factory on Linden Avenue is in the slow process of deconstruction — each brick, tile and wooden beam being taken apart by hand, the raw materials then going up for sale online.

It is a fate that was inevitable, said Rob McMillin, manager of Pelican Landholdings LLC, which owns the building. Because of the building’s age — it was originally constructed in 1892 — many aspects of the structure are unsuitable for modern manufacturing, such as the low ceilings and inadequate compliance with the American Disabilities Act.

“The building is multistoried, and yet it is only suitable to have a (manufacturing) tenant on the bottom floor,” McMillin said. “This is problematic, because the second and third floors are a substantial amount of the square-footage of the overall building.”

The costs of maintaining the building as a whole, the heating and cooling system for instance, which is designed to heat and cool all floors at once would therefore have to be covered entirely by the single tenant on the bottom floor. It was a setup which was, McMillin said, “entirely unsustainable.”

To further exacerbate the problem, a water main break in 2014 resulted in significant damage to the structure, which would have required additional funds to clean up.

So, instead, they decided to take the building apart.

“We are doing this all by hand,” McMillin said. “We want to be good stewards of the historical value of these materials, so we are carefully removing the tile, wooden beams and brick, taking care to preserve them, and are now beginning to sell the salvaged material online.”

Using sites such as Craigslist and eBay, Pelican Landholdings is attracting both small and large buyers inside and outside Ohio. The process is slow, pain-staking, but worthwhile, McMillan said.

“Right now, the building is an eyesore,” McMillan said. “We are going to take the structure down in five to six months and then leave a few remaining structures as well as the cement ground pad.”

McMillan said the decision to salvage the building does not mean the site will no longer be available for manufacturing. His hope is to attract a small manufacturer to use the remaining structures and the land, which will offer employment opportunities for the community.

“As the building stands now, it is essentially obsolescent,” McMillan said. “This work now is about moving forward and creating new opportunities for the land and for the community as a whole.”

epsmith@gannett.com

740-450-6772

Twitter: @evansmithreport