For decades, the nearly 100-year-old building in downtown Akron known as the Printers Club has been a printers union hall and a bar with a loyal following, including lawyers and others who work nearby.
Now, a new owner plans to install a coffee shop and convenience store in the two-story building at 53 E. Exchange St. The Printers Club bar will remain at least until May 1; its future is uncertain after that.
For area resident Dean Fongemie, who bought the building for $110,000, it’s all about location.
“We are targeting the Akron U students who live nearby,” Fongemie said. “It’s surrounded by college dorms. It’s all foot traffic. I think it will be a place for the students to get out of their dorms.”
The Exchange Street building’s previous owner, the Akron unit of the International Typographical Union (ITU), bought the row-style brick structure in the 1960s.
Tom Cowman, president of the local union, said that the bar’s future is “up in the air.”
Fongemie, the building’s new owner, is allowing the bar to stay rent free until May 1, and has told union members the bar is welcome to remain after that day, as a paying tenant. No deal has been worked out.
Cowman said the union sold the building because “union membership was just getting so low. ... It’s hard to keep the building up with that few members.”
The local union now has only six active members and about 40 retirees.
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