MANSFIELD — Richland County Commissioner Tony Vero was driving in the spring of 2021 when he again noticed the five-story, decaying failure that has sadly dominated the east end skyline at 200 Fifth St. for the past three decades.
“I was going to the Edge Plastics ribbon cutting on April 21 and I drove by the former Westinghouse building on the way,” Vero told Richland Source at the time. “It’s obvious to me and everyone else that the building has been in a rough state.
“I looked at the building and I said to myself, ‘You know what? I think it’s time we start looking at doing some things.'”
Thus began a rapid public/private effort that ultimately saw the Richland County Land Bank take ownership of the “A” building; the adjoining 13-acre concrete slab; and a nearby vacant building, most recently owned by Electrolux, based in North Carolina.
However, the “A” building has become a nightmare of a vision that’s been impossible to miss since the former Westinghouse “A” building became idle when the manufacturer closed its sprawling local operations in 1990.
If you look up “rust belt” in the dictionary, you will likely find a photo of the “A” building next to it.
That skyline of industrial blight finally begins to change Dec. 19 with what’s been dubbed the “Westinghouse Demolition Extravaganza,” the proper next step in a $4 million project to clean up all three sites.
That’s when the R&D Excavating wrecking ball slams into the concrete structure for the first time, according to Vero, a member of the Land Bank board.
The Crestline company has already been working on the former Electrolux site across the street and its sub-contractor has been removing asbestos from the former “A” building.
Vero and other local officials, perhaps joined by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, plan to be on hand to watch the first blow around 3 p.m.
DeWine approved a $3 million state grant for the project in April. The City of Mansfield and Richland County commissioners have each agreed to contribute $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds, as well.
“We started this process less than 2 years ago, and it is exciting to know we accomplished a lofty and complex goal in that amount of time,” Vero said.
The Land Bank announced the Dec. 19 wrecking ball date on Monday.
“Today’s announcement is just one of several major announcements in Richland County over the past several months that show tangible growth and development in our county,” Vero said.
Once the “A” building is down and the other sites cleared, decisions can be made regarding the future of the site.
“We will look at all options to appropriately utilize the former Westinghouse once the demolition of the A building and nearly 14 acres of concrete adjacent to the building is complete,” Vero said.
“What that might be is contingent upon any unforeseen issues discovered in the demolition. We are working with a large concrete building and a slab that may be 6 feet deep in some places. There is no telling for certain what we may find until the process begins,” he said.
Before the walls come tumbling down, there is one additional step planned to salvage a part of the Westinghouse history.
What did the factory once mean to Mansfield? At its zenith, Westinghouse employed 8,177 workers in 1955. That means about one-third of the city’s wage-earning workers were employed there at the time.
Put simply, at the time, a Mansfield resident likely worked there, had a family member who worked there or knew someone who worked at Westinghouse.
That’s why an agreement was reached among the city, the Land Bank, Richland County Historical Society, Mansfield’s Historic Preservation Commission, Downtown Mansfield Inc. and the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office to preserve an original, mammoth brick and stone Westinghouse doorway before the building is demolished.
As part of the pact, the organizations agree to cooperate on the construction of a monument “displaying one or more aspects about the Westinghouse Building A and its significance to the area.”
The plan is remove the arch and reassemble it as “close to location of original door as possible, based on good engineering practices and code requirements of the City of Mansfield.”
The agreement also calls for the preservation of “original decorative elements as is feasible,” as well as the original brick. It also calls for a plaque featuring the historic connection to Westinghouse and the women’s labor movement.
“(Westinghouse) is a big part of the community,” Jennifer Kime, Downtown Mansfield Inc. CEO and local history lover, told county commissioners in July. “We have a lot of industrial properties in town that are all really important.
“Westinghouse undoubtedly was really a cornerstone of our community for a long time. And like many of us in this room, we have connections to it. The community feels a deep connection to Westinghouse and we lost so much of Westinghouse already,” said Kime, whose grandfather once worked at the manufacturing site.
