I contemplate a sturdy hardwood desk in the Southeast Ohio History Center in Athens, wondering if they make things like they used to. I look around the office and take note of rust-colored brick walls and dark wooden window frames.
“Where are you from?” asks director of outreach at the Southeast Ohio History Center, Tom O’Grady.
After telling him I’m from Miamisburg, Ohio, O’Grady begins to teach me the historical significance of my hometown. O’Grady believes in the power of one’s roots.
Understanding Adaptive Reuse
O’Grady works to preserve the region’s cultural heritage and history through educational opportunities for local communities. He has a storied career in promoting the reduction of waste, establishing Ohio’s first comprehensive curbside recycling program. These days, he is passionate about adaptive reuse.
Adaptive reuse is the repurposing of an existing structure for new use. The practice is typically applied to older buildings that have outlived their original purpose, granting them new life.
The Southeast Ohio History Center models the benefits of adaptive reuse; the building was constructed in 1916 and served as the First Christian Church until the Southeast Ohio History Center purchased it in 2015.
“The old buildings are made of the primeval materials of Ohio’s landscape,” O’Grady says. “People think the primeval forests of Ohio are gone. They’re not. They’re holding up the roofs of barns, factories, mills and many houses. You’ll never get to work with trees like that again.”
The energy required to mill the wood, cut the stone from bedrock and melt the sand into glass windowpanes is substantial. When an old building is torn down, “you can’t recover that energy,” O’Grady says.
In O’Grady’s mind, these materials, derived from original resources, are monuments of the region’s natural and cultural heritage.
The architectural integrity of historic buildings adds to their importance. The quality of the materials used to build pre-World War II structures cannot be matched at an affordable price today. This is why modern buildings tend to have a life expectancy of 30 to 40 years, whereas pre-World War II buildings can last many generations, according to Norwalk Tomorrow, a Connecticut based city-planning organization.
“The buildings we’re building (now) don’t have that kind of longevity built into them,” says O’Grady. “So, what we have inherited, what’s left, we should do everything in our power to preserve it and reuse it.”
Another reason to repurpose materials is the carbon footprint that comes with demolishing old buildings and constructing new ones.
As of 2023, almost 40% of global energy-related carbon dioxide is attributed to construction, according to U.S. Green Building Council.
Environmental initiatives highlight the importance of recycling materials such as bottles, cans and newspapers, but fewer people consider adaptative reuse of construction materials.
“If it’s important to conserve those things, think about how important preserving and reusing a building is to conservation and sustainability,” says O’Grady.
If a historic structure is beyond repair, deconstruction is preferred to demolition. In deconstruction, high-quality materials can be preserved and used again for new projects, lessening the need for new materials, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
With my new understanding of the cultural, architectural and environmental benefits of adaptive reuse, I decided to visit the Federal Valley Resource Center and see what a current adaptive reuse project looks like.
Federal Valley Resource Center
The story of the Federal Valley Resource Center (FVRC) begins in 1897, when a two-room brick schoolhouse was built in Stewart.
After 100 years of name changes and expansions, the Stewart school complex closed its doors. In 1999, the original schoolhouse, the addition to the schoolhouse and a gymnasium sat vacant and dilapidated.
That same year, the FVRC was organized. Initially, the FVRC consisted of a computer lab and a senior club in the school complex’s main building before it evolved into a non-profit organization.
In 2000, the newly formed organization rented the school grounds and its buildings for $1 a year, assuming all costs of maintenance.
In 2012, the FVRC bought the former Stewart school complex and transformed it into a community center. The organization regularly renovates its buildings, working to improve functionality through adaptive reuse.
Today, the FVRC offers Stewart and the surrounding townships a food pantry, thrift store, community garden, gymnasium, mobile health unit and a music-lending library. The FVRC has plans to make the facility a center for Appalachian art as well.
Nearing the FVRC, an old brick bell tower sports an orange aluminum roof. Around the corner a “ROME – CANAAN” sign is plastered across the most recent addition to the schoolhouse, completed in 1920.
Therese Lacky, president of FVRC, sits in the instrument-lending library. Lackey is a former music teacher and taught at Federal Hocking Middle School while it was still located at the Stewart school complex.
Lackey has a deep connection to the facility and is dedicated to FVRC’s goal of using the old school to provide for the community.
Even with recent renovations, like the handicap-accessible ramps that were poured just two weeks before my visit, the work is far from over.
“We continue to upgrade everything that we can,” Lackey says.
Lackey’s hard work was evident when she briefly suspended my facility tour as she talked shop with contractors renovating the gymnasium. Despite the continuous need for renovations, Lackey refuses to replace many original structures. Her dedication to preservation is especially apparent in the original two-room schoolhouse.
“People say, ‘it’s old, knock it down.’ Not necessarily. 1897 is pretty old…but we’ve worked and worked on it. We probably will not have the floors ever redone. Look at them. They’re beautiful!” Lackey says.
The previously mentioned bell tower fashioned with a brand-new roof represents the organization’s balance between preserving the century-old architecture while maintaining the facility’s structural integrity.
New roofs are a priority renovation when preserving an older structure. A leaky roof can derail an adaptive reuse project before it even begins, as water damage can greatly deteriorate a building’s durability, according to Stevens Roofing Corp.
“Since 2011, every dollar that was given and every dollar that was made in the thrift store went into the roof fund,” Lackey says.
Fortunately, the FVRC received a $500,000 grant in addition to all the money saved, allowing every roof to be replaced at the facility. By replacing the roofs of even the vacant buildings, the FVRC reserves the opportunity to use the buildings in the future.
The Future
Lackey hopes that adaptive reuse will become a trend throughout the region and encourages residents to preserve historic buildings in their own communities. She suggests that starting a reuse project in one’s own community might be as simple as asking a few questions.
“Find out who owns the building … and ask how you can help,” Lackey says. “Do you need help cutting grass? Or do you mind if I cut those vines off the brick, because we know it’s sucking the moisture out of them. Is there a room that is usable? Could I rent this room? Do you already have ideas how it could be used?”
During my drive home, I pondered Lackey’s advice. I considered how past generations might encourage us to preserve the buildings we inherited, recalling a quote that O’Grady had cited:
“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our fathers did for us.’” – John Ruskin.
Will Southeast Ohio be left with a heritage worth preserving? That largely depends on the answer to one question.
Where are you from?
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