ASHLAND – Pump House Ministries’ main building– the last remaining building the organization owns and occupies– is up for sale.
The building at 400 Orange Street, which currently houses the Pump House’s offices and catering business, is listed with agent Faith I. Deal at RE/MAX First Realty in Mansfield. The list price is $999,000.
Pump House Ministries founder and president Bruce Wilkinson said he hopes to shed the building by the end of the year, but he emphasized he’s not planning to cease operations.
“We’re going to sell our building, but we’re not going away,” he said. “We’re just changing our address.”
Pump House Ministries has operated out of 400 Orange Street since 2003, when Jim Landoll and Marty Myers gave the ministry a 14-acre industrial complex that included all the former F.E. Myers and Landoll buildings.
At that time, the complex was valued at $2.1 million. Most of the value was in the building that is now up for sale. The rest of the land has been foreclosed by the county, transferred to the City of Ashland as part of a foreclosure settlement or sold on land contract.
Though Wilkinson said he believes he was called to the building by God, the Pump House founder expects the sale of the building to bring him a sense of relief.
“It’s an awesome building and it truly afforded us to do so much, but I don’t think I’ll be sad to be done with it because we’re anxious to move on to whatever God has for us down the road,” he said. “I just know that I don’t have to be here anymore. It will be a relief. It’s a big responsibility.”
The building is 72,000 square feet, according to the real estate listing. It underwent extensive renovation prior to Pump House’s acquisition of the property, but the building still retains many original features from its times as the headquarters of Ashland’s largest manufacturer.
Reflecting on Pump House’s history in the building, Wilkinson recalled the men’s shelter that once was housed there. He also noted the former restaurant allowed the ministry to employ people and get them started in the food service industry.
Wilkinson said several business and organizations have operated out of the building over the last 15 years, including massage businesses, a martial arts studio, Ashland Christian Health Center and the alternative school that became Ashland County Community Academy.
“We’ve done a ton of stuff in this building. We actually have done all the things we came to do,” Wilkinson said. “We had a big list that we wrote down 18 years ago of things that we’d like to accomplish, and frankly, we’ve accomplished every one of them.”
These days, the building is largely unoccupied. TouchPoint Call Center, which was renting space in the building, is mostly moved out.
“Quite frankly, we don’t need this building anymore,” Wilkinson said.
Pump House has long argued it should not have to pay property taxes because is a non-profit corporation. But because the property was not donated to the ministry directly, but rather given to for-profit companies that were given to the ministry, the ministry lost its opportunity for tax exempt status on the property.
Pump House currently owes around $200,000 in back taxes on 400 Orange Street, and those taxes will have to be paid as part of the sale price.
When it came time to sell, Wilkinson said, he decided to look outside Ashland for an agent.
“I called a real estate company outside of our community, because, quite frankly, I don’t think anybody here knows how to sell property like this,” he said. “I don’t think they’re qualified to do this, and I don’t think we’d get a fair shake out of them.”
Wilkinson said he thinks the asking price is “a reasonable deal” for potential buyers that he hopes will allow him to make “a clean cut” by the end of this year.
Wilkinson said he intends to rent another space for the organization’s textiles program. Fabric of Life currently operates out of a warehouse at Fourth and Union streets, but that building was part of a recent foreclosure by the county. The Fabric of Life program collects used clothing donations from Ashland and other communities throughout Ohio, Indiana and Michigan and sells them to companies who then resell them in Africa.
Wilkinson said he also intends to keep operating as an off-site caterer, possibly spinning off the catering portion of Pump House into a for-profit business.
For more information about the Pump House property, check out Ashland Source’s four-part series, Fourth & Orange.
