Trustees also consider eminent-domain plans to seize housing area to build new stadium
University of Akron trustees might take two steps at their meeting today to help pave the way for a long-awaited stadium.
One would be to purchase Quaker Square, including the Crowne Plaza Hotel and meeting complex, on the north edge of campus.
The other would be to launch eminent-domain proceedings on a multiblock area of houses wedged between the university and state Route 8 on the east edge of campus.
Acquisition of the hotel, shops and surrounding land would open up more coveted parking spaces for UA students and would allow the university to put its hand on hotel rooms that could be transformed into residence halls.
Those rooms would take the place of four residence halls that would be lost to the wrecking ball north of East Exchange Street and east of Brown Street, where the stadium would be built.
UA spokesman Paul Herold said the university had been in discussion with Quaker Square Properties ``for some time, a matter of years.''
He confirmed that discussions had ``intensified in recent months and weeks.''
``At this point, there is no finalized contract but it is quite possible that the matter could go to our trustees in executive session tomorrow,'' he said.
He declined to confirm the swirling rumors that the university would seek eminent domain of property that would become the site of the new stadium. Dozens of homes are in the area; many are rentals and many date to the early 1900s.
Ted Curtis, UA vice president of capital planning and facilities management, under whose watch the stadium would be built, declined to comment.
However, sources who asked not to be identified said the university appears poised to begin action needed to take the properties for the stadium.
The university has been inching forward for years on plans to replace the 67-year-old Rubber Bowl. UA officials view the facility, located seven miles from campus, as too far away to bolster UA's growing on-campus life and too costly to repair.
In March, trustees hired the Welty Building Co. of Fairlawn and Hunt Construction Group of Scottsdale, Ariz., for $580,000 as construction managers for a 25,000- to 30,000-seat stadium with 20 to 30 loges that would cost $54 million to build.
UA officials have said the stadium would be part of a larger complex of residence halls, retail stores and more that would cost $120 million, with funds possibly coming from the state, donations or selling bonds.
Last fall, UA hired THNTB Ohio Architecture Inc. of Cleveland for $2 million to do conceptual drawings of the stadium complex.
As for Quaker Square, it is home to one of Akron's pioneer industries -- milling. The oat mill complex was built in 1885 by Ferdinand Schumacher, who developed oatmeal as a popular breakfast food. His mills eventually combined with the American Cereal Co., which in the early 1900s merged into the newly formed Quaker Oats Co.
As production of grain moved farther west and Quaker Square's milling equipment grew older, production slowed. The company stopped operations in 1972, leaving the city with a white elephant on its hands.
A group of Akron-area businessmen bought the property for $7.3 million with plans to build a shopping and restaurant complex with apartments in the grain silos.
The apartments never came to pass, but plans were launched in 1979 for a $6.2 million, 260-room convention hotel in the silos.
The owner is Quaker Square Properties, headed by Jay Nusbaum, who was one of the initial developers of the project more than three decades ago. Quaker Square Properties also owns the Crowne Plaza franchise.
Nusbaum could not be reached Tuesday and Crowne Plaza officials did not have an immediate response.
Carol Biliczky can be reached at 330-996-3729 or cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com. Beacon Journal staff writers Phil Trexler and John Higgins contributed to this report.
