Mayor Carty Finkbeiner and Blade Publisher John Robinson Block rallied tenants of the United Way building at a Jan. 9 meeting to talk about saving the structure.

Debbie Conklin, director of the Toledo Lucas County Homeless Board, attended the meeting, which was called by Finkbeiner. Tenants were told by Peter Douglas, president of The Douglas Company, and Bruce Rumpf, president and CEO of Job1USA, about plans to save the United Way building, which the United Way board had rejected, she said.

“They shared their desire to save the building and persuade United Way to stay in it,” Conklin said.

Also at the meeting, Block spoke via speakerphone to the tenants, according to Conklin. Block shared his feelings about Downtown renovation and not demolishing significant buildings, Conklin said.

An attempt to reach Block was unsuccessful.

Finkbeiner spokesman Jason Webber said believes the meeting was held to discuss alternatives to the existing proposal of demolishing the building.

The United Way is moving forward with its plans to construct a new building near the current one at One Stranahan, according to Bill Kitson, president and CEO of United Way. The longer United Way stays in the building, the more money the community loses, he said.

Conklin said the meeting was called because the mayor and those who spoke at the meeting want to save the building and would like to see United Way as the anchor tenant. Conklin said some tenants may have thought Finkbeiner and those who spoke at the meeting were trying to rally forces against United Way, but that was not how she took it.

“None of us want to be in the middle,” she said.

The mayor reportedly asked tenants to stay in the building until at least March 31. Kitson said United Way will close and vacate the structure by Labor Day if the building construction proceeds on time. He said he does not know the significance of March 31.

Kitson confirmed United Way received a proposal in the fall from The Douglas Company to renovate two floors of its current building. It was rejected by several committees and the United Way board.

Rumpf said Jan. 15 that he got involved in seeking an alternative to demolishing the United Way building because he is a community activist and a lifelong Toledoan.

Rumpf said the mayor called the meeting for Jan. 9 to be helpful to the tenants, who are “in a tough spot.” They might hesitate to speak out against tearing down the building for fear of losing United Way funding, he said.

“That is ridiculous,” Kitson said Jan. 15. “Our volunteers who decide funding take their work very seriously. To think what an agency says about bricks and mortar would affect that is absolutely ridiculous.” Kitson said many of the tenants of the United Way building do not receive money from the agency, but all were offered funds to help them seek new quarters.

Under The Douglas Company plan, the building renovation would have cost $2 million, but it did not include redoing the heating and cooling system, roof work and other add-ons that would have pushed the project cost to $6 million, according to Kitson. The Douglas plan called for renovating the basement and first floor, and leaving the other floors unoccupied and not repaired. United Way’s new building is set to cost $5 million.

“It was not financially viable; it did not talk about the long-term solution,” Kitson said. “It basically renovated two floors and left four empty floors on top of us that at some point you were going to have to deal with, and that was the problem.

“We were disappointed because the meeting [fall] I left was about a developer redoing it and United Way renting.” Kitson said he doesn’t know how it ended up being “one more proposal for United Way to renovate a building.”

Rumpf said The Douglas Company “wasted time and money on working on an alternative plan.” Kitson should have been upfront that “the train had left the station,” that the organization “never intended to consider alternatives” and wanted to go ahead with leveling the building and constructing a new structure.

Conklin said even if two floors of the building were renovated, her agency would have to leave because it is located above those floors. She said it would be no problem for her agency to move, but it will be a hardship for some tenants. Conklin would like to see the building saved.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 9:27 am and is filed under Breaking News, Community.
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