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Question: The Ohio Brass Building located at 380 N Main St. is a beautiful building sitting vacant. With all the improvements to downtown, what is the future of this building? I hate to see us lose another historic staple and iconic building.
MANSFIELD — The Ohio Brass Company Administration Building will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2026.
The future of the immaculate, five-story brick building at 380 N. Main St. — which cost local industrialist Frank Black $250,000 to build in 1926 — may get even brighter with a new historic status.
Mansfield City Council is scheduled to vote Aug. 6 on legislation creating the historic designation for the office building, giving local landmark status to a company that played an integral part in the city’s history.
Downtown Mansfield Inc. CEO Jennifer Kime said the designation could set the stage for potential redevelopment of what remains from what was once among the most important manufacturers in the city’s history.
Unlike Westinghouse and other local former industrial sites that have met the wrecking ball, the Ohio Brass administration building remains intact. It’s ready to once again do business, its reinforced concrete and steel framework as solid as ever.
“It’s an extraordinary building,” Kime said. “I haven’t been in it for a few years. I’ve gone through it a few times (with potential developers) that we have had looking at it and it’s in remarkable condition.”
She said the local officials have sought for “a number of years” to have the property designated as historic. If City Council approves, it would go to the state for review.
“This building really is one of very few remaining structures from that industrial past that are in phenomenal shape and really show opportunities for development. Not only that, it’s a gorgeous building on a main corridor,” she said.
“We are losing these industrial heritage buildings left and right, all the time,” she said.
Black established the brass foundry in 1888 at the age of 23, borrowing $5,000 from relatives to launch the venture, which supplied buckles, hooks, rings and cinches to hold straps in place during the horse-drawn era.
The company quickly grew and purchased a local plating company, adding a new line of brass valves and plumbing fixtures, according to local history writer Timothy Brian McKee.
(Below are photos inside the Brass Office Center taken by Downtown Mansfield Inc. CEO Jennifer Kime.)
Recognizing the cultural historic value of the building will help guarantee its future, Kime said.
Lawyers Development Corp. of Mansfield owns the building and has kept it maintained.
“When they go in for the financing of these historic properties, they want to use all the incentives and tools available,” Kime said.
“One of the most common tools used is historic tax credits. This building in particular, with it being designated historic, development can then opt in and compete for the historic tax credits through the state and federal government, which is what I think the ultimate goal is,” Kime said.
“It’s something we have wanted to see as the best designation for a long time,” she said.
Kime said the designation also allows for a degree of local oversight of the building into the future.
(Exterior photos of the Brass Office Complex at 380 N. Main St. in Mansfield. At construction, it was 252 feet long and 52 feet wide. The story continues below the photos.)
“The local landmark status would (mean) local oversight from the City of Mansfield Historic Preservation Commission on any notable changes to the facade of the building,” she said.
“(For example), in a future development, if the owners wanted to cover the facade of the building with stucco, things like that would be under review.
“The structure of the building remains time-period consistent and that no damage is done that can’t be replaced on the facade of the building and that it continues to fit in with its time-period designation,” she said.
Black began Ohio Brass with 10 men and quickly doubled that to 20, according to McKee, who said its progress was halted by the financial panic of 1893
That’s when a young engineer named Charles K. King was brought aboard, helped retool the brass foundry “to make parts for the hottest transportation industry of the day: electric streetcars,” McKee wrote.
In the next three decades, Ohio Brass expanded so many times that it employed 1,100 local residents and conducted a nationwide business in a variety of electrical products.
As Ohio Brass expanded, King rose quickly through the organization, becoming secretary in 1895, vice president in 1905, president in 1928 and chairman of the board in 1946.
The manufacturing facility was ultimately sold over the years and ended local operations in 1990.