Chardon Council Finally Gives Heritage House Green Light
We've already held it up for eight years. Phil King
With a vote of 5-1, Chardon
City Council approved the design and color scheme of the long-awaited Heritage House Thursday, setting the project in motion for construction to begin in the spring.
After an hour-long presentation and discussion with Dale Griffis, design/builder with Cold Harbor Building Company, plus input from the audience, council approved a replacement of the old log cabin with a larger structure on the same site on Chardon Square.
The 2,400-square-foot Herit-age House will include a meeting room that can seat 64 at tables, a concession kitchen with a window facing the square, an evaporator room for making maple syrup, restrooms and a utility area.
The primary objection to the plan to replace the log cabin came from Chardon businessman Dennis Kileen, who spoke for about 15 minutes about the history of the log cabin and said it wasn’t too late for council to jettison the architect’s plans and renovate the cabin.
After his plea, Mayor Phil King made it clear to council that it was about to vote on whether or not to go forward with the project.
Council voted to have Cold Harbor of Chardon go ahead, with councilwoman Deborah Reiter voting “No.”
“From the very beginning on this project, I thought that Heritage House would be built with private funds and I willingly worked hard on the committee to raise those funds for probably seven years or so,” Reiter said Monday. “Since the city has gotten involved and they have decided they are going to be using public funds, I have consistently voted ‘no’ on the project.
Plus, I’m not fond of the design,” she added. “I don’t think it fits the Square. Even if I wasn’t so upset with the public funds part versus private, the design, I couldn’t accept that design. At the time when council was going through the budget, I wanted to have it taken out of the budget because I don’t believe this project should go forward.”
Griffis promised to provide City Manager Randy Sharpe with the final plans that will include more details about the hip roof and the chair rail around the meeting room. Griffis said waiting until the March 19 meeting for approval of the small details would put him a month behind on the project.
“We’ve already held it up for eight years,” King said.
Griffis said the city will be installing drainage east of the building to alleviate the ongoing problems the log cabin has had.
“The water situation was insurmountable,” he said, adding the site is at the low end of the square, so water had no place to go. The city’s addition will make it possible to keep the Heritage House dry.
“We’ll tie into it with the drainage around the building,” Griffis said.
A resident said the concentric hip roof doesn’t give Heritage House the appearance of an old-fashioned sugarbush syrup-making building.
One concern voiced during the design discussion was that a full-height structure would block the view of the square, Griffis said. By designing Heritage House with a hip roof, the building’s height was lowered by seven feet, so the view is not obstructed.
City Engineer Paul Hornyak, who was involved in the design discussions, said making the Heritage House look old-fashioned was not a criteria of the Kiwanis or other organizations.
“It’s more than just a sugarbush. It’s a meeting room, concession stand and restrooms,” Hornyak said.
A cupola on top is reminiscent of a sugar house, he said. The windows will let natural light into the open-story meeting room that will have a concrete floor and interior access to the concession kitchen.
The 210-square-foot evaporator room will be visible through two large windows and the room is going to be well-vented to remove steam that could rot the structure “from the inside out,” Hornyak said.
Griffis, who was hired to take care of both design and construction of the facility, emphasized throughout his presentation that the budget of $450,000 has been driving all parts of the work.
In November, council specified the construction will start after this year’s Maple Festival, which is at the end of April, and be done in time for the holiday decorating of the square.
Replacement of the rustic log cabin on the square has been an ongoing project for several years as council struggled to meet the expectations of a number of project supporters while trying to get it funded within the confines of public mandate.
