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Remnant of Warren’s Main Street history to reopen as art gallery
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Dale Bell of Bell Construc- tion says projects like his renovation of the 110-year-old building at 410 S. Main St. is among the most satisfying — though probably not the most profitable — of his career.
Renovation of the first floor of the 18,000-square-foot, four-floor, wood-and-brick structure began in 2008 and has now cost “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The building, which is next to the Warren Health Department, apparently started out as a warehouse at a time when Main Street (now known as Main Avenue) south of Courthouse Square was an important commercial focal point of town.
The area is important, historically, because it’s just south of the spot at the corner of Main and South streets, where Ephraim Quinby founded Warren in 1801 when he built one of the first homes along the Mahoning River in what is now Warren. The Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal passed through that portion of the river from 1840 to 1860, to be replaced by the railroads in 1860.
“The canal and the railroad made that area important,” said Trumbull County historian Wendell Lauth of Bristolville. “At one time, that was the place to live — The Flats.” Much of The Flats area was demolished in the 1970s with federal Urban Renewal funds, leaving behind few reminders of the neighborhood’s history.
Bell didn’t intend to turn the once-dilapidated structure into a cool, repurposed art-studio concept, but that’s what he did — with the help of the nonprofit Trumbull Art Gallery, which will use the street-level space for an art gallery and coffee shop.
When he bought it in 2007, Bell paid $27,000, planning to dismantle it and sell the bricks and rough-hewn lumber. The housing crisis and national economic plunge of 2008 meant there was no market for those materials, however.
In the years since then, he has assigned his employees to work at the site as time permitted, and the project is finally about ready, with the city likely to issue an occupancy permit in the coming weeks.
Bell likes to see the reaction of first-time visitors to the large front room, which consists of a coffee bar with modern kitchen and a sign indicating it will soon be the “Artisan Cafe.”
But modern is the antithesis of what Bell’s 410 S. Main building is all about. With the cafe’s exposed bricks, aged yellow-pine beams and new-but-old flooring, the space is a reminder of what an important commercial and industrial area this was 100 years ago just south of the existing B&O railroad tracks and two now-demolished train stations.
The flooring, tables and coffee-bar countertop are all made from floor joists that Bell’s company took from the building to its Bazetta Township shop and milled from 2-inch beams into 3/4-inch panels.
Workers salvaged a large number of the beams when they demolished the second, third and fourth floors — about 6,000 square feet of space — from the back of the structure several years ago.
Bell said he believes the look at the cafe will serve as a good backdrop to the artwork TAG will present for exhibit and sale. In addition to the cleaned-up brick and wood, the room also has exposed square-foot support beams — one with the words “Western Reserve Lumber Company” written on it, apparently an indication that the beams and other lumber came from a prominent lumber operation just south of there.
Western Reserve Lumber Company was operated by the Packard family, including Warren Packard and his sons, W.D. and J.D. Packard, who built Packard automobiles around the turn of the century in Warren.
The earliest records from the Trumbull County Library’s Local History Center show Bell’s building in 1915 being divided into two sides — one side used by the DeVoe Grocery Co., a food wholesaler, and the other side being used by The Warren Rubber Co., a wholesaler dealing in rubber footwear, tires and clothing.
DeVoe apparently left soon afterward, replaced by Komray and Bock Moving and Storage, which remained there until at least 1949, when the company also listed United Van Lines as a part of the company. Lauth believes George B. DeVoe, owner of the DeVoe Company, may have built the structure. Trumbull County records indicate its construction year was 1903.
The arrangement with the Trumbull Art Gallery calls for TAG to use the space for free.
“In exchange, [TAG] will drive artists in here,” Bell said. As the arts community comes to appreciate the building and the seven art studios he has constructed on the first floor behind the art gallery, he hopes to rent the spaces.
Pat Galgozy, TAG director, said she hopes the venue will encourage the growth of the Warren arts community.
Bell, a 1977 Warren G. Harding High School graduate, said he took on the renovation because he’s from Warren and has seen this type of thing work in other cities where he has lived, such as Chattanooga, Tenn.
“In any city you want to look at, the downtown revitalization comes through the arts community,” he said.
“We do all kinds of construction, but this is what we like to do the most. It doesn’t mean it makes the most money,” Bell said.