A public forum was held Wednesday to discuss ideas about how the Ridges can best be repurposed to serve the community and OU, though implementation will not take place for a while.
The Ridges might one day be home to locally-owned restaurants, more academic buildings or art studios.
But not any time soon.
About 40 Ohio University staff members, students and local residents attended a public forum Wednesday evening to discuss how The Ridges could best be preserved and used to benefit the university and Southeast Ohio.
“We aren’t saying that we can do any of this yet; we are just exploring,” said Shawna Bolin, co-chair of the Ridges Master Plan Committee.
It’s another indicator that the university is seeking to preserve rather than demolish the more than 700-acre property. OU has already spent at least hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair the complex since the state gifted it to them in 1988.
“You might not have a whole lot of classrooms up there but there’s certainly land and resources up there that can support what goes on in the classroom,” said Bob Loversidge, president and CEO of Schooley Caldwell Associates, the university’s consulting firm for the planning.
He suggested using the buildings for offices, graduate housing or condominiums.
But the committee needs to establish funding, the next step in the planning process, before any ideas can be finalized, Bolin said.
“If we are going to see this develop in a reasonably timely way … it is going to be from private money,” said Joe Shields, vice president for Research and Creative Activity, who also co-chairs the committee.
Committee members are considering using federal and state tax credits as well as OU funds, but they recognize “that the university doesn’t have a pot of money to put in to this,” Loversidge said.
“At the moment, we are trying to look at everything we can think of,” he added.
The university recently approved $300,000 for a “stabilization process,” which includes repairing some buildings.
“It’s not new roofs, and it’s not meant to (totally redo) the buildings; it’s so we have choices later,” said Ben Stuart, existing buildings subcommittee chair in the Ridges Master Plan Committee.
Long-term plans may involve “editing,” Loversidge said, meaning that “bits and pieces of some parts of the buildings could go away.”
“It’s not the same as tearing things down,” he said. “It’s taking a body of work and making changes to it to make it better.”
OU demolished Building 26, the former tuberculosis ward on the property, in March 2013, but not without some backlash from the Athens County Historical Society and other Athens County residents.
“The university was very closed-minded when it came to that,” said Tim Traxler, a member of the historical society. “Our effort is to keep the university on track and to let them know that the community is really interested in what happens.”
Currently, about 100,000 square feet — one-seventh of the total complex’ square footage — are being used.
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