New office building could block vintage ads, but Secchia family wants to save them

GRAND RAPIDS, MI Developers say they're eyeing the property at 35 & 41 S. Division Ave. for an office building that would potentially break ground next year, but whether that new construction re-covers a pair of vintage advertisements revealed by wrecking crews this week remains to be seen.

Charlie Secchia, partner with SIBSCO LLC, said his company loves the location that was occupied for the past 100-some years by a pair of brick buildings, which Pitsch Wrecking knocked down this week after engineers deemed them beyond salvage.

The demolition project, the largest downtown in several years, revealed two turn-of-the-century banner advertisements hidden from view for more than a century on the north side of Rockwell & Republic restaurant and bar.

One ad is for Battle Ax Plug Tobacco, a value brand owned by the American Tobacco Company in the early 1900s, and the other appears to be for Howard brand furnaces and combination heaters.

Rockwell & Republic owner David Reinert said he was keen to preserve the ads, but was unsure what form the development next to his establishment might take. Rockford Construction and SIBSCO, a Secchia family real estate and investment company, are partnering on the site redevelopment.

Well do our best to save (the ads), Secchia said. We think its pretty damn cool.

However, the ads could be hidden from view again depending on what type of structure is eventually built on the double lot, located on the southwest corner of Weston Street and S. Division Avenue in downtowns Heartside Historic District.

SIBSCO, which is the majority property owner, is leaning toward erecting an office building populated with new and existing businesses, Secchia said.

Im pretty confident I can find enough tenants to pave the way for an office building, he said. Thats the goal, but were not excluding other options at this point.

Secchia, son of businessman and former ambassador Peter Secchia, floated the idea of a glass wall on the floor level with the vintage ads, but said engineers would have to consider a buildings structural integrity in making that decision.

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New office building could block vintage ads, but Secchia family wants to save them