Old grain silo house1/24/2024 ![]() The university planned to house more than 400 students in the converted hotel starting with the 2008 spring semester. In mid-June 2007 the University of Akron bought the complex for $22,679,000 with plans to convert it into student housing and office space. (Source: "Quaker Chronicle" promotional sheet available at the hotel.) The Quaker Square General Store offered oatmeal cookies, pie-baking classes for children, and "nostalgic" candy. The Trackside Dining Room was constructed with the beams and columns of the factory building. The Trackside Grille & Ice Cream Parlor, a restaurant themed with railroads which run parallel to the building, also provided a narrative of Akron's history. The hotel is built into the suite of silos and is famed for its 196 completely round rooms. ![]() The silos were converted into a Hilton Hotel which opened in 1980. The facility was repurposed in March 1973, and reopened 1 April 1975 with four shops and an ice cream parlor. The entire complex was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Quaker Oats terminated production in Akron in 1970. The complex is now the only remaining visual reminder of what was once Akron's largest single employer. Each silo was 120 feet tall and 24 feet in diameter, and together they housed 1.5 million bushels of grain. Quaker Oats built 36 grain silos on the site in 1932. ![]() The complex consisted of cereal production facilities, warehouses, and rail-siding sheds. Those buildings formed the basis of the Quaker Oats Cereal Factory. Schumacher's facility, first built in 1872, was destroyed by fire in 1886, then was rebuilt at the same location. The Quaker Oats company was formed by the merger of several businesses, one was the Akron-based German Mills American Oatmeal Company founded by Ferdinand Schumacher. The University fully vacated the facility by 2022. After that, the hotel no longer accepted reservations as the former hotel rooms and the entire complex began to be operated exclusively for student and university use. Quaker Square was open to the general public until September 18, 2015. The retail space consisted of dozens of small shops and restaurants, and there were large areas of historic exhibits on such areas as the local Quaker industry and history of radio in Akron, while offices were on the floors above. The hotel has been converted to a residence hall. The buildings were bought by the University of Akron in 2007. The buildings were bought in the early 1970s by developers who sought to create a unique, useful home for shops and restaurants. Quaker Square was the original Quaker Oats factory the complex consists of the former mill, factory, and silos. Quaker Square was a shopping and dining complex located in downtown Akron, Ohio which is now used by the University of Akron. “They’re unbelievable out here,” she says. “European settlers travelling west compared the endless grasslands with the ocean and named their wagons prairie schooners,” she says.Īt night she sits in her living room knitting – she doesn’t own a TV –and often lies down to look at the stars. She calls the balcony the pier, because it extends over the prairie land, which locals refer to as the ocean. She takes another walk with her dogs in the afternoon and then goes to her balcony to sip a martini and watch the sun set. She then takes her two poodles for a walk around the prairie and heads to her studio to make art. Never built a house in one, though’,” Morris recalls.Ī typical day for Morris has her waking up to the sunrise seen from her bedroom, making a cup of coffee and sitting at the kitchen island. In walked Tom Skovron, and the employee asked him if he was up to building the grain-bin home. Again, serendipity struck one day while she was in her local building supply store showing her blueprints to an employee. We really wanted to preserve the knowledge that you’re inside a grain bin.”įinding a large enough grain bin had been difficult, Morris says, but finding someone to build a house inside was even tougher. You could just put a bed on the lower level, and it’d be a beautiful space as is. “I’d never been inside an empty grain bin before,” Pancheau says. Morris ran utility lines onto the property to provide power and water to the home. ![]() There’s also a conditioned bathroom, a laundry room and a mechanical room there. Stairs lead down to unfinished space below, where Morris keeps an art studio. Inside the grain bin, you can see how the living space forms a contained, insulated box within the metal structure.
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