Completed work on wall leads to next step for artPARK
Wall: The brick wall at the artPARK that is shared with the Civic Hall on Main Street has been fixed and the Pomerene Center for the Arts is now ready to move on to the next phase of turning the empty lot into an art park. Beacon photo by Josie Sellers
COSHOCTON – A major step was recently completed in making the artPARK space a focal point of Downtown Coshocton.
“The brick wall (shared by the Civic Hall) is finally restored and finished,” said Anne Cornell, Pomerene Center Artistic Director and Community Studio Artist. “It took four months, but it saved the Civic Hall (next door) and the second and third floors of it are pretty close to being cleared for occupancy.”
The PARK space in the 300 block of downtown is the site of the former Park Hotel, which had been closed for years, but was destroyed by fire in 2005. Shortly after the fire the Pomerene Center for the Arts started working on turning the empty space into a place for the community to gather and raising funds to accomplish this.
Now that the wall is fixed the Pomerene Center for the Arts is able to move on to other phases of creating the artPARK.
Hathaway Construction Inc. and local engineer Harold Hitchens did an examination of the wall and discovered it was not as unsafe as people thought.
“The worry was if the fire could have gone through the bricks and charred the ends of joists,” Cornell said. “They discovered that couldn’t have happened because it (the wall) was too thick. Harold really stuck his neck out for us. To overcome opinion is very difficult.”
Lang Masonry Contractors Inc. in Waterford, however, did come in and grind out the old mortar, replace deteriorated bricks, replace mortar and coat the wall with a sealer.
The next step in the artPARK development will take place on Saturday, Oct. 24 when a Make a Difference Project will be held there from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“It will be like an Amish barn raising,” Cornell said. “We will have an Amish foreman there and volunteers will be putting the oak down on our wooden platform. It’s a great opportunity….to stand shoulder to shoulder and drive screws into our platform.”
Hathaway Construction also will be at the site on Oct. 24 working on making furniture for the space and Cornell is hoping that some trees can be planted.
“We can start doing major work on the floor of the PARK space now that we are done with the wall,” Cornell said.
The target date for a ribbon cutting at the artPARK is the first of May in 2016 so it can coincide with Dogwood Festival weekend.
“The idea behind this is to give people a reason to be downtown,” Cornell said. “Things happen where people congregate.”
Category: People & Places
