The city of Fort Wright acquired the Fort Wright Civic Club building and property in March of 2024. Now, they’re tasked with finding a refreshed purpose for the property. While it has been primarily used as a polling place for the last several years, the city believes the site could be something more.
City Administrator Jill Bailey explained how they acquired the Fort Wright Civic Club property.
“The board of [Fort Wright Civic Club] was facing the challenging decision of how to move forward with the operation of their facility,” Bailey said. “[ . . . ] They were realizing a significant decline in membership and low rentals affiliated with the facility, which was their primary revenue stream.”
The building had outstanding utility bills and the organization had an outstanding balance of $1,714.83 on their 2023 property tax bill. The board decided to donate the entire property to the city of Fort Wright. In exchange, Fort Wright wrote off their outstanding tax balance and assumed the cost of those additional utility bills in addition to some legal expenses.
“In all, it [cost] about $9,000,” Bailey said.
Fort Wright then commissioned CT Consultants to assess the site and the building for functionality and accessibility.
The assessment that CT Consultants presented the city with was not very flattering.
The building itself has black mold, and the outside walls have no insulation. The bathrooms and the parking lot, among other things, are not ADA-compliant. Due to these issues, among other problems with the HVAC and electrical systems, CT Consultants gave the Fort Wright Civic Club building a functionality score of “poor.”
Mayor Dave Hatter told LINK nky that he was not expecting the prognosis to be that bad.
After CT Consultants’ presentation, Hatter offered his perspective and asked for insight from the firm.
“The way it is laid out now, in my opinion, is not very useful,” Hatter said. “Is this building really salvageable? Should we tear it down and start over?”
Michael Anderson, Senior Architect at CT Consultants, informed the council of some of their choices going forward.
“I think there are a couple of options to salvage it and remediate it,” Anderson said. “It’s a gut job. It’s a good sized building, but it has a lot of steps and vertical changes. The site is an issue in terms of parking because you can’t lower the building, so you’ll have to raise the site. There is too much slope from the building to the parking lot for ADA accessibility.”
They could also demolish the building and start over with a new structure or sell the whole thing to developers. When the Fort Wright Civic Club board donated the site to the city, they made no stipulations about the property’s future. City council is not ready to make any decisions yet.
“We don’t have a purpose for this site yet,” Councilmember Margie Witt said. “Until we know what we are using it for, we don’t know if it’s better served by rehabbing or tearing it down.”
“It’s just a damn fire hazard from what I can see,” Councilmember Justin “Jay” Weber said.
Council has decided to look into their options and better develop their goals for the space. They elected to put together a working group to discuss it. Right now, that group potentially includes Hatter, Councilmember Witt, and Councilmembers Dave Abeln and Scott Wall, who grew up in the neighborhood surrounding the former civic club.
LINK asked Abeln what the Fort Wright Civic Club meant to his neighborhood.
“We could walk there,” Abeln said. “It was where we had the Cotton Follies. It was where the parents went on Friday nights. There were festivals every summer. For more than 50 years, it worked for us.”
Abeln also spoke about the future of the site.
“I don’t know if the building can be saved, or if we want to save it,” Abeln said. “But as long as we respect the historic value, we can implement a refreshed look with similar purposes.”
Hatter also sees some potential for the site to serve as a community center again.
“From the standpoint of potentially building a community center, this site is much bigger than the property we have from South Hills Civic Club,” Hatter said.
The city acquired South Hills Civic Club before they acquired Fort Wright Civic Club. Fort Wright Civic Club also has the benefit of not being “wedged” in a residential area.
“Fort Wright Civic Club has had a key part in the city pretty much since its inception,” Hatter said. “It’s important to memorialize it in some way if we do end up demolishing the building. This was very generous of the board and the site has a lot of promise.”