County Home spared

LISBON - The County Home has been saved from the wrecking ball, and a nonprofit state preservation organization now wants to take it on as a project.

Columbiana County Commissioner Penny Traina confirmed this week they have abandoned efforts to use federal funding to demolish the County Home complex on County Home Road in Center Township. She said they made the decision after learning they would be required by the state to undertake a number of possible costly steps before getting final permission to demolish the County Home.

The first of the five County Home buildings was constructed in 1845, one of which was listed on the National Register of Historical Places as an example of a public poorhouse of that era. As a result, before the buildings could be demolished commissioners needed permission from the State Office of Historic Preservation.

Traina said the commissioners would have been required to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the state requiring they undertake a number of things, including how they could preserve the County Home's historical memory and significance. This could take the form of a slide show presentation, booklet, brochure or book, all of which commissioners feared could be costly.

Also working against commissioners was the fact the $40,000 in federal funds they planned to use to demolish the buildings had to be spent by June 30, leaving them little time to comply with the state requirement even if they wanted to.

"The bottom line is we couldn't meet the schedule, and even it we could the costs would be prohibitive," Traina said.

Commissioners would have only been unable to demolish three of the buildings because the remaining two buildings - constructed in the 20th Century - contain asbestos. A consultant estimated it would cost $220,000 to remove asbestos from one building before it could be demolished, which is money commissioners don't have.

While all of this was going on, commissioners learned Heritage Ohio had chosen the County Home property as one of its preservation projects for 2010. The group is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving historic buildings in Ohio by seeking state and federal grant money.

Heritage Ohio, in a letter dated June 9, told Traina the designation means it will "assemble a team of experts which may include developers, architects, contractors, etc, who will meet with interested parties in your community to talk about potential solutions, what are options and challenges that face successful rehabilitation."

Traina said a local man who specializes in restoring older homes estimated it would cost $14 million to restore the three County Home buildings constructed in the 19th century.

"We appreciate what Heritage Ohio does. However, we have no financial assistance to add at this time," she said.

Local preservationist Stevie Halverstadt, who has been working to save the County Home from being demolished, is the one who contacted Heritage Ohio and asked the organization to consider making it one of their projects. She said it could be used as a tourist attraction because of its proximity to a bike trail, a point also made by Joyce Barrett of Heritage Ohio.

Barrett described the County Home as a "challenging site, but certainly (an) opportunity to integrate with the bike trail. These buildings thought of as a nuisance should instead be viewed as an opportunity ... to make use of a unique historic asset," she said, in a news release.

Heritage Ohio is the state partner to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

tgiambroni@mojonews.com