PAGA to showcase Preservation House renovations

9/25/2014 - West Side Leader

The event will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony and ringing of the school bell at 3:15 p.m., followed by a brief program about the buildings history and information about rehabilitation of the building. City of Akron Director of Planning and Urban Development Marco Sommerville and other officials are scheduled as speakers, and the interior of the building will be open for viewing.

On Feb. 4, the City of Akron approved the designation of the building as a local Historic Landmark.

Information on renting the building for meetings and other gatherings will be available, and light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

According to PAGA officials, Preservation House was constructed in 1870 for $1,450 and originally served as a Portage Township School District building for students in grades one through eight. In 1930, the building became the property of the City of Akron School District.

On Oct. 24, 1932, the school district sold the schoolhouse to the Public Library Board of the City of Akron, and during the 1930s and 1940s it was used as a library, according to PAGA officials.

The building functioned as a school again in the early 1950s to accommodate overflow from Fairlawn Elementary School, PAGA officials added. From 1958 to 2008, the building was used as a meeting place for the Fairlawn Park Garden & Civic Center.

In April 2009, the City of Akron signed an agreement that gave PAGA the use of the building for its headquarters for 10 years, according to PAGA, which actively encourages and promotes the preservation, maintenance, restoration and adaptive reuse of buildings, sites and neighborhoods that are of historic or architectural significance in Akron and Summit County.

Over the past five years, PAGA officials state almost $200,000 has been raised to renovate Preservation House, with Mark Gilles, of ARRC Inc., hired to serve as a preservation/restoration architect.

The first phase of restoration work began with the exterior and included relocating the furnace to the attic in 2009; the removal of the cinder block furnace room and rebuilding the east vestibule exterior walls and siding in 2010; the installation of a brick walkway and ramp to access the east entrance of the building, a new cedar shingle roof and new front doors and windows for the east vestibule in 2011; a new cedar shingle roof with copper flashing for the main building and south vestibule in 2012, as well as re-siding the south vestibule, with the entrance door replaced by a window, landscaping the area and adding air-conditioning.

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PAGA to showcase Preservation House renovations