Seven days a week, the sound of thousands of Ohio University students and faculty coming to and going from Baker University Center permeates onto South Court Street.
The building is one of two architectural bookends for Athens’ famous main drag, Mayor Paul Wiehl said.
“Basically, (Court Street) is bracketed on one side by Baker Center and the other side by the armory.”
Baker Center’s counterpart at the street’s north end, however, never sees such action.
The old National Guard Armory, set to turn 100 years old next year, is lucky to have one visitor on any day, Wiehl said.
The brick structure is an investment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for the city, which Wiehl said the city took off the Ohio National Guard’s hands in 1997.
With the intention of creating a second municipal court, city officials purchased the armory, along with another property on Hudson Avenue, for about $250,000. The building and the property it sits on are now worth about $837,000, according to records from the Athens County Auditor’s office.
In the last 16 years, Wiehl said the city has failed to find enough money to get the building up and running again. The building that once stood for power and might now has the simple task of housing records for most city departments.
Except in the case of an occasional break-in, it is rarely visited by anyone who isn’t a city employee — perhaps because there’s no functioning plumbing or heating, and Wiehl guessed the electric system hasn’t been upgraded since at least before President Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933.
According to the city auditor’s office, the city is slated to spend about $1,500 this year to keep electricity flowing through the antiquated 13,000 square-foot building.
Seeing that money go toward a historic building without much use is frustrating to Ron Luce, executive director of the Athens County Historical Society and Museum.
“I think that’s admirable, but we need to find some use for it,” Luce said, adding that he believes it would take at least $500,000 just to get the building up to code, let alone any aesthetic improvements.
Recently, Luce said, he suggested the building could be put to good use as a new home for the Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly’s office after Kelly expressed desire to move from his current location on Washington Street.
But Kelly, who has on numerous occasions expressed a deep desire to move, wasn’t as optimistic. In fact, he said he’d rather tear down the armory altogether before he’d move there.
“(The armory) would be a terrible place; there’s not enough space there,” Kelly said. “That building really needs torn down and rebuilt. We wouldn’t be able to have an impound lot or a pistol range, both of which we need.”
Although the city of Athens hasn’t quite figured out how to best utilize the armory, less than an hour away in Marietta, city officials are beginning to put some of the finishing touches on their nearly 100-year-old National Guard Armory, said Jonathan Hupp, the service-safety director there.
Hupp said the city, without knowing exactly what they’d use the armory for, went ahead and spent about $1 million to $1.5 million on renovations. He added that they were taking advantage of soon-to-expire grants, which, coupled with money from private benefactors, cut the city’s bill down to $63,000.
Luce said he’s been following the project from a distance, but isn’t holding his breath for similar work in Athens.
“I think they’re just doing wonderful things,” Luce said. “I don’t think our city has the money or will.”
sh335311@ohiou.edu
@SamuelHHoward
