Akron Reporter

Akron, Ohio — On June 13, the City of Akron has launched a public engagement page on the city’s Akron Engage site seeking ideas for how best to commemorate the B.F. Goodrich smokestacks after their removal. The State of Ohio awarded Akron a $4.9M brownfield grant in 2022 for the removal of asbestos and demolition of unsafe structures on the property in preparation for redevelopment. Akron City Council voted unanimously to authorize the demolition and removal of the decommissioned buildings and the stacks in November 2022. Demolition is expected to begin later this month.

"Ideally, we would preserve the iconic stacks as they make up a recognizable part of the city skyline and carry so much history of Akron's past," said Mayor Dan Horrigan. "Unfortunately, the smokestacks lack the structural integrity to stand alone, and the bricks cannot be reused due to the hazardous materials in them. We're looking to hear from our residents for ideas about how to best pay homage to the stacks since we cannot keep them up."

The city has published a public board asking residents to offer up their ideas on how to best pay homage to such a vital part of the imagery of Akron's historic prosperity. View the project and respond to the public board at the city’s Akron Engage site here: https://akron-oh.civilspace.io/en/projects/b-f-goodrich-power-plant-abatement-demolition.

In 2016, International Chimney inspected one of the stacks and deemed it to be in "poor condition" and recommended emergency removal of the top portion of the north stack noting that the stacks would only continue to deteriorate. They detailed bulging brickwork, cracks in the stacks, missing mortar and issues with the 36 reinforcing bands used to keep the stacks upright. It was determined that the decommissioned buildings and stacks at the B.F. Goodrich site must be demolished due to the lack of structural integrity. In addition, regulated asbestos containing material, lead paint, polychlorinated biphenyls, mercury, coal ash (bottom ash and fly ash), and accumulated pigeon excrement (a source of inhalation-based infections, if disturbed) were found in the buildings and stacks. In the stacks, this debris is several feet deep. As coal combustion stacks, the structures transported sulfur, arsenic and mercury and may contain crystalline hazardous materials that must be removed for environmental safety as well.

History of the site

Constructed in 1861, for use by the Diamond Match Company, what we know today as the B.F. Goodrich site in downtown Akron was first used for warehousing and lumber storage, then mixing and chemical storage, a pattern shop, muslin drying room, carpenter shop, rubber cement house, and an oil house. The current buildings on the site were constructed for use as the former B.F. Goodrich Power Plant to produce steam, heat, and electricity for the B.F. Goodrich Facility and other parts of the City of Akron until 2015. Additions to the original building were made in 1889, 1918, 1919 and 1921. Six buildings were constructed on the property sometime between 1916 and 1938. The Power Plant was originally configured for coal-burning power generation with six boilers. The City acquired the Power Plant in 1987 to use only the gas-fired boiler at the property as a backup to the steam operations at the neighboring Recycle Energy Systems plant. Coal combustion emissions from the boilers were routed through two stacks exiting through the roof. The facility, with the exception of Building 55, was decommissioned in 2020.

Original source can be found here.