The 108-year-old Lincoln School at 455 Delta Ave. in Columbia Tusculum has a new owner and is being reincarnated as an office-condominium development.
At the same time, the school's longest and largest tenant, Empower Media Marketing, is moving to Mount Adams, to the former Clear Channel Communications building at 1111 St. Gregory St.
"Our lease was up, and we started looking at our options some time ago," said Brian McHale, president of Empower, which does media research and planning for some of Cincinnati's largest companies.
Empower, which has about 29,000 square feet in the Lincoln School building, is leasing all 32,600 square feet of the St. Gregory Street building from Towne Properties LLC. The St. Gregory Street building is over a three-story parking garage.
Empower, which employs about 110, will move Jan. 24. McHale said the move had been in the works for some time and was unrelated to the new plans for the building.
Lincoln School Partners LLC acquired the five-story former school building last week from SunAmerica for $1.97 million. The partnership, which includes Vision Land Development, Quadrant Financial of Cincinnati and Equity Development of Columbus, plans to spend another $1 million renovating the lobby and other public areas over the next couple months.
Kent Arnold, president of Vision Land, said he envisions between 20 and 30 offices being developed in the school, which was converted to office space in 1985.
Arnold said he expects the offices will range from 1,300 square feet to 7,500 square feet. He said the building will have space for solo practitioners, mid-sized offices and businesses in need of an entire floor.
"There are a number of professionals in the Hyde Park-Mount Lookout area working out of homes," he said. "We think this is a better option."
Cost of the office condos will be about $140 per square foot including a decorating allowance, he said. Each office will be entitled to four parking spaces in the building's lot per thousand square feet of rental space.
