Visitors get a look at Warehouse District
Annual event gives a glimps of Bakery Building, others
9/21/2015
Visitors stroll through the Bakery Building during the Wander the Warehouse District Tour, which also included the Bassett Nut Building and The Buchanan Nipper building.
THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER
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Visitors stroll through the Bakery Building during the Wander the Warehouse District Tour, which also included the Bassett Nut Building and The Buchanan Nipper building.
When Toledo’s Warehouse District was just beginning its revitalization three decades ago, Susan DelVecchio was frequently asked whether it was safe to live there.
Now, she said, the most frequent question she gets is, “When are you going to have a unit available?”
Ms. DelVecchio and her husband, Robert Seyfang, opened the Bakery Building, 33 S. Michigan St., to the public Sunday afternoon as part of the Toledo Warehouse District Association’s annual Wander the Warehouse District event.
The 32,500-square-foot Bakery Building, which the couple spent seven years working on and 23 years living in, has five commercial spaces and eight apartments.
Mr. Seyfang said they never have vacancies, just a waiting list.
PHOTO GALLERY: Wander the Warehouse District Loft & Home Tour
Like so many of the iconic buildings in the district, the Bassett Nut Co. building, 45 S. Huron St., has been made over in recent years to house office space and residences that spotlight the building’s historic features: well-worn hardwood floors, towering windows, huge old doors, exposed brick, pipes, and ductwork.
“It just blows me away that someone would come to a building like this and say, ‘Aha! This is it,’” Ralph Becker, a volunteer tour guide, said as he showed a group through the law offices in the building that once sold “nuts from all over the world.”
The Toledo office of Edge, in the Bakery Building in the Warehouse District.
Evan Feldstein, a lawyer who rents one of the two apartments on the second floor, said this is his first experience in downtown living and so far he loves it.
“Everything’s walkable,” he said, referring both to his job in another Warehouse District building and the bars and restaurants that dot the area around Fifth Third Field. “There’s always something going on.”
Deborah Gerst, a volunteer tour guide who lives in the nearby Bartley Lofts, was peppered with questions as a group waited outside the Bakery Building.
“Do you like it down here? Do you walk at night? Do you carry a gun or Mace or a Taser?”
Ms. Gerst said she feels safe downtown. As for the other common question she hears — where do you go to the grocery store? — she always tells people she shops at the same stores where everyone else goes.
A crowd in the Warehouse District waits to view the Bassett Nut Building during the Wander the Warehouse District Loft & Home Tour.
Organizers said they expected about 500 people to tour the six sites on this year’s tour, which also included the Buchanan Nipper Law Office, 407 Washington St.; Sullivan Live/​Work Space, 23 S. St. Clair St.; Albright Apartment, 109 Wabash St., and the Marck Residence, 123 S. Huron St.
Sunny blue skies and cool temperatures made it a perfect day to get inside the buildings and learn about their history.
Derek and Jessica Emery said a job transfer landed them in the Toledo area from Kansas City a year and a half ago. They moved to Holland but wanted to see what the Warehouse District was like.
“It’s different from what we expected,” Mr. Emery said. “It’s been interesting to see that people are living in it and working in it.”
Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.