If you’ve lived in or around Lucas long enough, you’ll remember Ed’s Dairy Bar and Pizza. After that the structure was expanded and became a family-style restaurant and karaoke bar known as Pickles Along the Tracks. But even if you don’t remember either of the former businesses, chances are – if you’ve been anywhere near Lucas – you’ve seen or heard about the odd looking blue building with portal windows, bubbles and a wave-like façade called Liquid.
“The intent of Liquid was to offer a sense of the nightclub life to people in our area so they wouldn’t have to go down to Columbus,” said Lucas Mayor Todd Hall of the strange-looking structure. “But like too many things, the novelty wore off and people stopped going.”
The Liquid building has been abandoned for over five years now, but that’s about to change. Last week the electricity was turned back on in the Liquid building as the new owner, Bill Zirzow, prepares the old nightclub for a whole new purpose.
“We have so many ideas for the place,” said Zirzow of his plans for the building. “Right now the Lucas Food Pantry is housed at Mt. Zion Lutheran Church, but there are a lot of steps to where it’s located and too many people have difficulty with the stairs.”
Knowing the food pantry will be moving to the new building, Zirzow says they can design the space to meet the specific needs of the pantry so that it can better serve the community. The Lucas Area Ministerial Association (LAMA), which currently handles the food pantry, will continue to be involved in the pantry and its purpose.
There’s even talk of putting in a clothing resale shop. “We sort of jumped the gun at first with all kinds of ideas but realized the need to focus on the needs of the community.” When Zirzow says “we” he is referring to the board members he’s put together to run the non-profit community center he plans to turn the building into.
The board members consist of representatives from each of the area churches as well as some local business people.
“We have a dedicated group of people,” claimed Zirzow of the board. “Our board is made up of Dave Culler, Pastor David Aune, Carrie Fanello, Nancy Niswander, Ken Frayer and myself.”
At a recent board meeting, financial analyst Mark Timberlake of Genesis Business Solutions spoke on creating this type of non-profit organization. Mark recently worked with the Bellville Neighborhood Outreach Center Food Pantry and specializes in helping non-profit groups such as this get up and running.
“He’s given us some great ideas,” said Zirzow of Timberlake’s presentation. “We are now creating our framework and our business plan.”
Rumors of Besta Fasta Pizza also going into the space have circulated around town. “We would like to see some type of food serve go in there, we just don’t have that ironed out yet,” admitted Zirzow.
The old volleyball courts are still on-site, though Zirzow says they need a lot of work. “It would be nice to get those up and running again because I think people would use them.”
As far as other plans for the building and site, ideas are still in the works. “We want a big community room for movie nights and parties. We’re also thinking of smaller rooms to use for classes and meetings.”
There’s a storage building on the property that’s already in the process of becoming a house of prayer. Zirow says the idea is to have a place where people can post prayer requests or just come in to pray. “Ideally we’d like to unify the local churches.”
With all the talk about the Liquid building, Zirzow says the number one thing people ask him is if the wave and bubbles façade will remain. “We’ll definitely be changing the façade,” promised Zirzow. “There are some structural issues so there’s a lot of construction work that needs to go into the entire place.”
The concept for the community center is still evolving and Zirzow wants the community to know that the board is open to ideas. “We want this to be something people want and can use so yeah, we are open to suggestions.” Bill Zirzow can be reached during the day at his business, the Town Money Saver at (419) 892-1913 or on their Facebook page: Lucas Community Center.
“We’ll definitely be changing the façade. There are some structural issues so there’s a lot of construction work that needs to go into the entire place.” said Bill Zirzow.
