Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Gel Pak Building


Last week, I read in the Morning Journal (and in the Chronicle Telegram as well) that the old Gel-Pak Building on Broadway will be renovated. Lorain County Health & Dentistry is going to receive $6.6 million of federal funds to fix up the old warehouse and use it as its main site to provide medical and dental care for low-income and uninsured residents of Lorain.

It's a odd choice to blow taxpayer money on in my opinion. (Sorry, this is one old building that I'm not too nostalgic about!)

The Lorain School System was planning on tearing the Gel-Pak Building down, since the new Lorain High School is going to be built right behind it. The Gel-Pak Building is also in kind of a crummy location. It's on the little chunk of 'old' Broadway, stranded up there by the railroad tracks – not very accessible.

$6.6 million seems like a lot of money to spend fixing up something that was going to be demolished anyway. I wonder what it would have cost to renovate some of these old school buildings that were torn down (or will be torn down)?

3 comments:

Lisa said...

The original school plan called for many renovations, then the state changed the scope of the project and would only agree to new construction.

I'm with you on this GelPak building. Demolition is long overdue. Tear it down already. They should have invested in St. Joe's instead.

Dan Brady said...

Hi Lisa!

Thanks for the comment--and I look forward to reading your Lorain blog! Looks like some really interesting stuff and great photography too!

-Alan D Hopewell said...

I'd have to agree with Lisa; St. Joe's was a real resource.