City Council and city staff hope it will be a transformational renovation in the Jefferson neighborhood.
The visual improvement already is night and day. Gone are the weeds and blight, including the ugly green fences that blocked the building’s view from the street. Now, the historic former train depot, built in the late 1800s, has been transformed into something impossible to recreate due to modern construction codes.
“It’s easy for me to look at other projects for other people and say, ‘Oh, yeah, we can transform this space’ and hear ideas and opportunities and constraints and help you come up with a workable solution,” said Meyer. “But when it’s our own, it’s tough because we’re the client, we’re the architect, we’re the contractor, we’re the bank, we’re all those things, so there’s a lot more we have to navigate.”
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Meyer Brothers and Sons is vacating the leased space it had on Millville Avenue for nearly 25 years as the staff moves into 770 Maple Ave, a transition that will take a couple more weeks. The project became possible because of a land swap deal with Cohen Recycling and Hamilton. Hamilton gave the recycler nearly 4.6 acres on North Third Street while the city received 3.6 acres on Maple and East avenues. The train depot sits on about half of that land.
During the renovation and construction of the facility, Meyer Brothers and Sons repurposed some materials in the building: the doors were reimagined into desks, some building hardware is now lighting features, and some smaller beams are shelves in the showroom.
“It was so exciting to see the space and envision the opportunities that it has,” Meyer said. “There are really not many buildings like this.”
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Hamilton’s historic building stock, most notably along the High/Main corridor, has been under construction for new uses, such as the former Anthony Wayne Apartments, which is being transformed back into its original use as a hotel, to be known as The Well House Hotel. The back of 20 High St., which is the former city administration building, became Municipal Brew Works, and the rest of the former city building will be transformed into a new hotel.
The most prominent recent renovation project is the former Champion Mill Paper Co., which is now Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill.
Meyer, a native Hamiltonian, said, “It’s a total blessing” to have the historic building stock in Hamilton. As he and his team worked on the old freight yard depot, Meyer said of the historic buildings in the city, “You just can’t find that in other places.”
Meyer said they worked to maintain the history and character of the former freight yard, including keeping the “graffiti on the walls” ― including some marked as being created in 1909 ― which “is just cool handwriting. It’s not replicable, this type of construction, the type of character, the type of history.”
Though they are not actively hiring for their design/build/remodel business, co-owner and general manager Jeremy Culver and Meyer said they will consider someone who’d work well within the company because that’s how they were able to balance the project and manage the day-to-day operations of the business. The team did grow, they said, and over the past couple of years, they’ve increased to a net total of 26 employees.
“We couldn’t have done it without the people that kept coming to our team that’s really helped,” Meyer said. “One of the things we were really challenged with was, ‘How do we run a business and still make money’ because this took a lot of money to invest in.”
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Meyer’s brother, Joey Meyer, the day-to-day operations manager, said the new hires during the project are “some of the greatest guys that came to us at the right time.”
“What they did for this project, to keep this running and the business going, ‘Yep, God’s hand’s in this place,” he said.
Because this was a daunting venture to take on, Joey Meyer said, but despite it being a formidable project, he knew it was “what’s best for the family.”
“Seeing it now, this is what we needed as a company to grow,” he said.
Not all of the 18,000 square feet of the new Meyer Brothers and Sons location is occupied as about 6,500 square feet will be leased. A company, or companies, that will lease that space is yet to be determined, said Culver.
“We want the right people, (and) not just to rush into something,” he said. “We want the right tenants, whether that’s one or multiple. We’re excited to figure out what that looks like in the coming months.”
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