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Akron's Bowery Redevelopment Project is Officially Underway

The groundbreaking was held inside the Landmark Building.
TIM RUDELL
/
WKSU
The groundbreaking was held inside the Landmark Building.

After half a century of ideas and plans that never got off the ground, the renovation of a historic block in the heart of downtown Akron is getting underway

Don Taylor, Welty Construction CEO with hammers in the symbolic wall at the Bowery groundbreaking.
Credit TIM RUDELL / WKSU
/
WKSU
Don Taylor, Welty Construction CEO with hammers in the symbolic wall at the Bowery groundbreaking.

Groundbreaking for the Bowery Project came just hours after final details were worked out for financing it. The ceremony was in the long-empty Landmark Building. It was constructed in 1923 as the headquarters of Akron Savings & Loan.

Front of the Landmark building, originally Akron Savings & Loan
Credit TIM RUDELL / WKSU
/
WKSU
Front of the Landmark building, originally Akron Savings & Loan

It’ll now be a mixed use property with 90-residential units and will anchor the revitalization of a whole block.  Don Taylor is CEO of Welty Construction, a lead partner in the $42-million project. We’re going to start on this building, the Landmark Building, creating the apartments. But on the other five buildings we’ve got to structurally put them back together.”

Renovation of the Bowery block has been discussed since as early as 1968. The Landmark building will anchor the project’s north end, with the Akron Civic Theater anchoring the south. 

Copyright 2021 WKSU. To see more, visit WKSU.

Tim Rudell
Tim Rudell has worked in broadcasting and news since his student days at Kent State in the late 1960s and early 1970s (when he earned extra money as a stringer for UPI). He began full time in radio news in 1972 in his home town of Canton, OH.