Steve Coon/Historic Developers’ impact on Hamilton
PROJECT: Historic Mercantile Lofts, 228 to 236 High Street (completed)
TOTAL RENOVATION COST: $9.2 million ($4 million from state tax credits)
NEW TENANTS: Art Off Symmes, Millikin & Fitton Law Firm, SHP Leading Design
PROJECT: Robinson Schwenn Building, 221 High Street
TOTAL RENOVATION COST: $800,000
NEW TENANTS: to be announced
PROJECT: Hamilton Education Workforce Center (former JournalNews building), 228 Court Street
TOTAL RENOVATION COST: $3 million ($800,000 from state and federal historic credits)
NEW TENANTS: Butler Tech’s Options Academy-The Arts; the Hamilton City Schools ABLE program; Miami Valley Ballet Theatre
Source: Historic Developers
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Where others see blighted buildings too far gone to save, Steve Coon sees the opportunity to help create a neighborhood where people can live, work and play.
Coon this year completed renovations of the $9.2 million mixed-use Historic Mercantile Lofts, while his Historic Developers investment group purchased and launched renovations for both the Robinson-Schwenn Building and the former JournalNews building, both of which are scheduled for completion in 2013.
The 51-year-old Canton man said he first became acquainted with Hamilton in 2006, when Cleveland architect Jonathan Sandvick let him know about “a great community in southwest Ohio” and the run-down Mercantile buildings between 228 and 236 High Street.
“Within the first five minutes — even with the big gaping holes in the floors and I could look up and the roof was caved in — I loved it,” he said.
Even with 98 percent of all construction projects shut down during the recession, Coon kept the Historic Mercantile Lofts project going.
His commitment to the project led to a partnership among the Hamilton Community Foundation, several business leaders and the Hamilton Vision Commission to help complete the project.
“I borrowed money from them and paid them back within a year,” Coon said. “They were able to make that happen, and I don’t know of any other place that could have happened except a smaller community like this. They were just as much a partner of mine as my (business) partners were.”
John Guidugli, president and CEO of the Hamilton Community Foundation, said the foundation was pleased to be able to partner with Coon on three of the projects to “create some new vitality in downtown.”
“He’s done this sort of project before in other cities and he knows how to get it done, (not only) from a construction perspective but from a historic preservation perspective and also from a financing perspective,” Guidugli said. “Perhaps, most importantly, (there’s the) enthusiasm that he brings. Steve gets very excited about the work he does and the projects he’s involved with.”
Coon, who got his first taste of rehabilitating historic properties when he was 15 years old, founded Coon Restoration at age 21. In the past 30 years, Coon estimates he has developed hundreds of properties, most of them in the Canton, Cleveland and Akron area.
The more than $12 million invested includes $9.2 million to rehabilitate and renovate the Historic Mercantile Lofts, plus $800,000 to upgrade the exterior and interior of the Robinson-Schwenn Building and $3 million to transform the former JournalNews building into the Hamilton Education Workforce Center.
“That’s an incredible amount of capital to put into our downtown during a down economy,” said Joshua Smith, Hamilton city manager. “It’s been huge for us.”
Coon’s company works in 20 states and is involved in 75 active projects across Ohio. He said tax credits, which funded a significant portion of each project, are what bring communities alive in redevelopment projects.
“If it wasn’t for the Ohio tax credit, none of these projects would have happened in Hamilton,” he said.
Coon said he doesn’t care much for new construction.
“You can go over to West Chester or any of these suburban areas, they all look the same,” he said. “Do you really think you’re somewhere special? There’s no history. The story’s yet to be told.”
Not so with Hamilton, where many have yet to realize how unique a city it is, Coon said.
“It’s like a Norman Rockwell community,” he said. “This isn’t Anywhere, USA. It’s very special.”
Coon is “first and foremost, a visionary,” Smith said.
“He is able to take a project and see something that the average person never sees,” he said. “He can take a historic building that people would write off as too expensive to repurpose or to rehab, and actually envision a product such as the Mercantile Lofts.”
Coon is now considering five or six other projects in the area.
“We’ve got the ball rolling … we don’t want to stop,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of good restoration in the next 10 to 15 years in downtown Hamilton.”
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