February 2026.
The Columbus Railway, Power, & Light Company Office, now a dry husk of its former self, was once part of a large complex known as the Cleveland Avenue Carhouse for the city’s streetcar service. Despite its abandonment, the solid exterior construction of the building should lend itself to adaptive reuse. It is considered one of Milo-Grogan’s most important architectural and historic resources, but it is also in danger of demolition.
The Columbus Railway, Power, & Light Company Office is located at 842 Cleveland Avenue in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by houses to the north and east, Reynolds Avenue to the south, and Cleveland Avenue to the west.
History
Although Wikipedia has a page about this building, which is how I discovered it in the first place, it also gets a decent amount of information incorrect. As is the case with other streetcar/railroad-related buildings in Columbus that I have visited, I’m using columbusrailroads.com as a source.
Circa 1900 view of the sparkly new Columbus Railway, Power, & Light Company Office. (Columbus Railroads)
The existing office building, along with the demolished buildings in the complex, were built in the early 1890s for the Columbus Central Railway Company. A lot of sources claim a 1915 construction date, which is erroneous. Columbus Central operated the interurban Columbus & Westerville Railroad, which was incorporated in 1891 and completed in 1895. (I’ve also visited the northern terminus of the line in Westerville, but it’ll be a good while till that post makes it to this website.) Its northern end was formerly Minerva Park.
1909 Ohio Inspection Bureau map of the site, including sections of the buildings. The office building is at the north end. (Columbus Railroads)
As it was built, the complex consisted of four buildings--the still-extant office building, a brick powerhouse, a maintenance shed (the larger one on Rannels/Reynolds), and two storage barns. It is known that Yost & Packard designed the powerhouse and office building, which are Romanesque Revival in style, and that the powerhouse was completed in 1894. It is unclear if they also designed the car barns, since the firm only lists the office building and powerhouse in their portfolio.
1894 photo of the powerhouse (right) and carhouse (left). This view looks southeast from Cleveland Avenue. (Columbus Railroads)
The powerhouse itself was the most architecturally distinguished building on the site (though the standing office building is a close second). It had a lovely brick facade with copious vaulting and a rooftop cupola, the latter of which vented the plant’s smoke. An 1894 publication of the Electrical Review lauded the design which, while “possessing every latest modern feature pertaining to high efficiency and adaptability to the material requirements [and] also [being] something unique as to architectural design,” it avoided the common fallacy of building such powerhouses “in locations where they are incongruous and out of place…[with] little or no effort to make the building look attractive and architecturally a picture.”
In 1899, the Columbus Central Railway Company was consolidated with the Columbus Street Railway Company, the other major streetcar line in Columbus. Columbus Street Railway already had a powerhouse, so the Cleveland Avenue plant was converted to an electric substation that operated through 1965. Additionally, since Columbus Street Railway also owned Olentangy Park in Clintonville, Minerva Park closed in 1902. The two merged companies were renamed the Columbus Railway, Power, & Light Company in 1913, their best-known name.
Track layout of the complex in 1918. (Electric Railway Journal)
In 1918, the main carhouse’s interior layout was redesigned for “the most favorable and efficient conditions…for making inspections and repairs,” along with the tracks leading into it. At that time, it was still the largest maintenance and storage facility in the streetcar system, and one out of every three employees worked there. This included new steel columns inside, a rebuilt roof, and a new track layout to avoid the previously laborious process of transferring the streetcars to different tracks.
Aerial view of the site in 1949, which is how it would have looked after 1933. Note the powerhouse’s missing cupola. (Columbus Railroads)
In 1930, the larger car barn along Reynolds Avenue burnt down, the first casualty of the entire complex. This also coincided with Columbus Railway, Power, & Light phasing out their streetcar service in favor of electric trolley buses. The Cleveland Avenue Carhouse was the first former streetcar building to be affected, as the Cleveland Avenue line was the earliest to be converted in 1933. A new bus storage building was built east of 9th Street, the only other old building remaining on the site today. (It is of bland industrial construction and inside a gated facility.) Columbus Railway, Power, & Light was renamed to Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric Company in 1937.
Overhead view of the site in 1978, during COTA’s ownership. The two car barns still stood at this time. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
With the founding of COTA in 1974, they began leasing the former Cleveland Avenue Carhouse from the Columbus Transit Company (Columbus Railway, Power, & Light’s name by that point), absorbing the company soon after. They purchased the entire property in 1976 for $651,700 and built a new bus storage facility in 1979, which stands today and either resulted in the demolition of the former car barns or enveloped them into the building. COTA went on to sell the property in 1987.
As of 2000, the office building had been abandoned for a while, and it was in poor shape with boarded-up windows. A local artist tried to purchase it that June during a sheriff’s sale, but she was undercut by a local realtor, Carl Woodford, who paid off the building’s back taxes and listed it for a higher price. His license was revoked in 2014 for similar tactics, but Woodford still owns the property and has done nothing with it for 26 years. He claims to have “private plans” for the property (demolition by neglect, I presume). The building also has no historic protection, despite recommendation from the 2007 Milo-Grogan plan to seek CRHP designation and possibly a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been named one of Columbus Landmarks’ Most Endangered Sites since 2014.
Photos
Despite being a solidly-constructed brick building, the office looks pretty decrepit nowadays. It’s kind of ironic--looking at this photo alone, you’d think I’m in “the hood,” but notice the black modern box house in the background. There are also brand-new, fancy apartments on Reynolds across Cleveland Avenue. Milo-Grogan is gentrifying fast.
Slightly better view:
You almost have to feel bad for the poor thing. Its compatriots were euthanized decades ago, its former use long gone, and it stands as a lone reminder of when America wasn’t so dependent on the automobile.
The Cleveland Avenue facade is short, with only three bays before the octagonal corner tower interrupts it:
The brickwork on this building is pretty fantastic for such an institutional design. Each window has a contrasting vault over it, and a row of corbels lines the area right below the roof eaves:
Looks like there’s some cracking at bottom right, though…no bueno.
Of course the preservationist in me sees the potential in this building. As it is, the former office is a crusty polychrome eyesore that has sat empty for over 20 years. If you’re driving into Milo-Grogan from the south, it is pretty much the first thing you see welcoming you to the neighborhood.
…well, if you’re not going 50 on Cleveland, that is.
Pivoting to the Reynolds Avenue side, the same method of expression continues, until the roofline abruptly shifts downwards:
Looks like Mr. Buffer needs some new paint. I can still make out the crappy tags on the walls.
It was definitely cheaper for the architects to execute these details in brick, with no similar sacrifice to texture. Like realtors love to say, she’s got good bones.
I love the giant witch’s-hat roof on the turret and its massive roof overhang. It adds the perfect touch of flair to cap off the building, like a cherry on top:
Further east, the facade becomes much more regular, with identical arches and spacing. Only the first-floor windows vary a bit:
This must have been where the regular lackeys worked, while the boss got a corner office in the tower.
Three different types of brick on these walls--one for the regular wall construction, one for the inner arch, and a third for the slightly projecting outer edge of the arch. Subtle details like this always add a bit of spice to a low-budget building.
The eastern end even does away with the more detailed arched windows, as it has the common industrial-style segmentally arched openings:
I really hope that this building sees an appropriate reuse and doesn’t continue to sit and decay on such a prominent site. Maybe they’ll turn it into a Trolley District 2.0.
Sources:
https://www.columbusrailroads.com/new/?menu=03Streetcars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Railway,_Power_%26_Light_office
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/p16802coll19
https://columbuslandmarks.org/2015-most-endangered-buildings/
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