BJ BUILDING SAVED! FIX, EXPANSION, $5.35 MILLION TAX CREDITS IN THE WORKS

 

BJ building saved from demolition; $5.35 million for major additions & improvements

 

The old Akron Beacon Journal building at 44 E. Exchange Street was awarded $5.35 million in Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit funds to help defray the cost of redeveloping the building, named one of the state’s most endangered historic sites in 2019.

Tony Troppe, the Akron developer known for creating the arts district and the BLU-Tique Hotel in downtown Akron, was granted the funds from the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit program to help defray the cost of redeveloping the historic property. 

The entire cost of the project is estimated at just over $54 million. 

The 1930 Art Deco-influenced structure at East Exchange and South High streets, which housed the newspaper’s operations until the offices moved to the AES (former Goodyear) building in 2019, was sold to Birmingham, Alabama-based Capstone Real Estate Investments for $1.1 million in 2020.

The company requested permission from Akron City Council to demolish the building but was denied. 

The redevelopment will include 197 new residential units, tenant space for offices and retail and restaurant spaces. 

A new 71,785-square-foot building would be added to the south side of the original building, with commercial space on the ground floor and three floors of residential space. 

Commercial tenant space will be on the ground floor of the original building, with residential space available on the first and second floors and lofts at the mezzanine level. New apartments will be constructed in the areas of the building added on in 1954 and 1985.

The work on the building and its additions will include: 

• Removal of some sections of the 1954 and 1985 additions to the building on the south side. 
• Reintroduction of large openings for windows that existed before the addition of a since-removed parking deck on the south side of the original building. 
• The addition of new windows to parts of the building’s exterior that are exposed as sections of the 1954 and 1985 additions are removed.

Restoration of the building’s brick and stonework.

SHEARER TO COLUMBUS, CHERYL POWELL TO INTERIM EDITOR

 

                                                                    MICHAEL SHEARER

Shearer to Columbus Dispatch; BJ ME Cheryl Powell will be Interim Editor

 

Akron Beacon Journal Editor Michael Shearer was named executive editor of The Columbus Dispatch. Since both are part of Gannett’s USA TODAY network, he’s working for the same people.

Michael is from the Columbus area and has family there so it’s sort of a homecoming for him. He was at the BJ for almost 5 years.

He oversaw news at The Canton Repository, Alliance Review, Massillon Independent and Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier.

Shearer, who will begin his new role Jan. 8, grew up in the Columbus area and served as top editor of The Advocate in Newark from 2000 to 2016.

The former GateHouse Media hired him to lead eight Northeast Ohio newsrooms in 2017 before it acquired the Beacon Journal in 2018 and merged with Gannett in 2019.

Managing Editor Cheryl Powell, at the BJ for 26 years, will be interim editor until a new editor is selected. Cheryl also was the Metro editor and a reporter at the BJ.

DAN WARNER'S WIFE, JANET WARNER, PASSES AWAY IN FLORIDA

 

                                      JANET WARNER

Dan Warner’s wife passes away

 

Former BJ managing editor Dan Warner’s wife, Janet Warner, passed away Monday, December 11 in Fort Myers, Florida.

 

Janet, who came from Elyria into Dan’s life,  published two small newspapers in Maine. Janet and Dan moved to Florida in 2002.

 

She founded and ran a soup kitchen at Church of the Cross in Fort Myers.

 

Dan and Janet were married for 64 years.

 

Dan was at the BJ from 1959 to 1969. He was a junior reporter in the Kent bureau, then copy editor, State editor and City editor before becoming the managing editor who, at publisher Ben Maidenburg’s instruction, negotiated salary terms with me that brought me to the BJ for 26 years as assistant State Desk editor under marvelous whirling dervish Pat Englehart, then makeup editor, newsroom computer coordinator when the BJ switched from typewriters to computer keyboards and, finally, TV Editor who gave birth to Channels, the BJ’s weekly TV guide.

 

My time at the BJ was the happiest and most fortunate of my 42-year newspaper career, mainly because millionaire owner John Shively Knight treated janitor to publisher with the same respect and dignity.

 

Dan left the BJ for the Philadelphia Inquirer where, not surprisingly, he became managing editor there, too.

 

As editor of the Eagle-Tribune, a regional newspaper covering Massacusetts and New Hampshire, he guided his troops to a Pulitzer Prize for general news reporting.

 

In “retirement,” Dan taught writing at Boston University, wrote a column for 17 years at the News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla., and handled editorial writing and investigative reporting assignments.

Dan once wrote:

“Honest day-to-day reporting wind trust and admiration from the readers. The sensational stuff sold newspapers for a day.

“Hard-nosed reporting on the ill deeds, weaknesses and foibles of the establishment were both celebrated and expected from the readers.”

Indeed, Dan. Kudos to your career and my condolences on the passing of Janet.  

Dan and Janet have two children, Dr. Melinda Warner, a pediatric neuropsychologist in Beverly, Massachusetts, and another Dan, assistant provost of Lehigh University.

 

Janet’s obituary:

 

Janet Warner, 84, resident of Shell Point in Fort Myers, passed away Monday, December 11, 2023. Janet was the wife of Dan Warner, former Fort Myers News-Press columnist, and served as youth minister and volunteer coordinator in MA. Before retiring, Janet was publisher of two small newspapers in Maine. Janet and Dan have called Florida their home since 2002.

Janet loved scrap-booking, sewing, cooking for others, and tending to her garden. She was a dedicated philanthropist, giving many hours of her time to church, Marriage Encounter, the East Fort Myers Rotary Club, and founding and running a soup kitchen at Church of the Cross in Ft. Myers.

Janet was born to Jerry and Josephine (Soja) Kostyo in Elyria, Ohio. She is preceded in passing by her parents, and her only sibling, a younger sister, Joyce Jones.

Janet leaves her memory with her beloved survivors, husband of 64 years, Daniel J. Warner; son Daniel A. Warner and his wife Tracy Spann of Easton, PA; daughter Melinda S. Warner of Salem, MA, as well as many nieces and nephews in her native state of Ohio.

Notes of condolence can be added to the Fort Myers Memorial Gardens website.

FUN WAS HADE BY ALL AT BJ FAREWELL PARTY FOR DOUG LIVINGSTON

 

           GUEST OF HONOR DOUG LIVINGSTON WITH "DINOSAUR" JOHN OLESKY, BJ RETIREE FOR 27 YEARS

              BRUCE WINGES WITH JOHN OLESKY

              JOHN OLESKY WITH SURPRISE FIRST-MEETING WITH ANOTHER WVU GRAD

Drank in joy (with a Pepsi) of another BJ gathering, this one honoring departing Doug Livingston

 

At least 2 dozen showed up for reporter Doug Livingston’s farewell party from the BJ at the R.Shea Brewery on South Main Straight in downtown Akron, which shares the same Canal Place parking lot as the Brewery that hosts the monthly BJ Gatherings the 3^rd Thursday of every month, except for December. R.Shea much better atmosphere than BJ Gatherings brewery.

 

Doug is joining the Marshall Project after being at the BJ since 2011 and covering education, 2016 Presidential election and Akron city government. In 2014 Doug got first place in Ohio’s Best Journalism competition for his education and children’s issues reporting.

The nonprofit Marshall Project specializes in exposing inequities in the criminal justice system. A passion for a noble cause for Doug.

It was the first time I had met Doug, because I retired from the BJ 27 years ago, and Doug has been at the new BJ and the 44 E. Exchange Street historic building where I worked for 26 years.

 

But I did encounter familiar faces like:

 

Betty-Lynn Fisher, rushing off to somewhere when my lady friend Joan and I arrived. She was the BJ’s super consumer columnist. After 28 years she became USA Today’s consumer reporter and doesn’t have to leave her Ohio home to do it.

 

Yvonne Bruce, who picketed for the Guild alongside me to fight for, and get, better wages and other benefits which, as someone at the party said, “They tore up” after the BJ changed hands a zillion times, or so it seemed, from Knight Newspapers to Knight-Ridder to that Canadian outfit that stacked debt into “Beacon Publishing,” filed bankruptcy, and left employees in the lurch.

Yuvonne was at the BJ for 36 years, 10 more than joyous years there where I ran to work every day because it was such a treat to get paid to do good work with great people.

Yuvonne was Metro reporter, copy editor, assistant Features editor and edited for a year the Question of Color batch of articles that brought the BJ yet another Pulitzer (5 while I was there before the Plain Dealer got its first one).

 

Bruce Winges, named vice president and Editor at the BJ in 2007, replacing Mizell Stewart when Mizell became managing editor of the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press.

 

Reporter Marla Ridenour, honored by the Ohio Associated Press Managing Editors Awards as best sports feature writer as far back as 2020.

When I headed for the door with Joan I was greeted by a woman, like me, in WVU clothing.

 

We had never seen each other before, but it is like old home week when Mountaineers cross paths even if it’s the first time they’ve sighted each other. In my travels to 56 countries, where I always wore my WVU clothing, other Mountaineers walked up to me to chat and we had a "yee haw!" time.

 

The younger BJ people stood at and near the bar – because they’re younger and can handle not sitting down. Joan and I chose sitting at a booth adjacent to the drink-swallowers who chatted away like old friends – just as I did when I was at the BJ for 26 years when John Knight was in his corner office a few days after the Kentucky Derby every year, wintering at the Miami Herald on warm Miami Bay and summering in Akron.

 

I left before the party ended – and it didn’t look like it would for hours – because I wanted to watch my alma mater, WVU, play Pitt in basketball later Wednesday night.

 

As it turned out, immersing myself in a BJ gathering was much more fun than watching Pitt, our most-hated rival in WVU history, defeat the Mountaineers on TV!

It wasn't a Great Night To Be A Mountaineer, as the slogan goes, but it was a great night to be at a gathering of BJ folks again. Still classy after all these years (and I began at the BJ in 1969).