It’s been too hot and humid in June and July for gardening outside. On July 4, we took Ziti to Prairie Oaks Metro Park and made her swim in the river for therapy and to cool off. The next weekend, Ziti ran all the events over two days in air conditioned comfort at a CPE Speedway trial. There are no weave poles or contacts she has to hit in Speedway, she just gets to run fast! A larger super fast border collie named Zing picked up most of the first-place ribbons in their size category, but Ziti managed to hold her own!

     
L: Ziti and Charissa cool off in a rock in Big Darby Creek at Prairie Oaks Metro Park on July 4. R: Ziti poses with all the ribbons she won over at the CPE Speedway trial at ARF.

When Intel decided to build a plant in Ohio, one of the reasons is the abundance of water. Apparently, data centers keep getting built here for the same reason. But it you are working on an old building with a basement, all that water can be a liability! At The Gardner House, Steller Construction finished installing the underpinning, new concrete slab floor, and exterior perimeter drain when a torrential downpour saturated the site. Rain came down so fast that the drainage system couldn’t get water out fast enough to prevent it from entering the basement. One solution is to add a drainage mat on top of the waterproofing to keep water off the exterior wall and direct it down to the drain pipe.

     
L: New fluid-applied waterproofing membrane that will be augmented with a drainage mat against the wall. R: An exiting cistern filled with water that we hope can be made into a historical exhibit that the pubic can view.

At Fernwood State Forest, the foundation drilling team working with E. Mullins Construction hit water that required the use of steel caissons to stabilize the shafts walls before the concrete could be poured. As an option, the driller could have eliminated caissons and used a slurry product known as “construction mud” (amongst other colorful names) in the shafts to keep the walls stable as concrete was being poured.

     
L: The Fernwood State Forest storage building in April 2025 with concrete piers curing in wood formwork. R: In July 2025, the floor slab in place and building framing up and anchored to pier foundations.

And finally, at Mount Zion Black Cultural Center in Athens, which is known to have a high water table, the constant rain made basement soil excavation a mud pit and caused the water table to rise. On the assumption that wet weather would only be more extreme in the future, HDC worked with the contractor Wolf Creek Contracting LLC  to raise the level of the basement floor and enclosed all sump pits in waterproofed concrete enclosures. The basement will still be usable space, but design changes eliminate floor finishes and keep drywall a few inches off the floor behind the vinyl baseboard to minimize water damage in the future.

     
L: Wolf Creek Contracting rigged up a conveyor system to remove mud and bricks from the basement. R: Water in the basement after another heavy rain slowed construction progress.

After multiple years on hold for funding and more, the renovation of the Northcoast Behavioral Health Dietary Building started in June! The general contractor is Feghali Brothers LLC out of Canfield, Ohio. Initial work consists of interior demolition to remove built-in freezers and coolers, asbestos abatement, quarry tile removal, and some exterior siding/fascia removal. The finished project will provide additional office space, including a meeting room and break room, and expand the existing restrooms to accommodate additional office workers. The expanded restrooms will be fully accessible and one of the office workers will finally stop sharing space with the server/IT closet!

     
L: The floor under one of the removed coolers will be leveled and prepped to accept a new floor finish. R: Quarry tile marked for area to be removed.

Kabil Associates is the lead firm on an ODOT-funded project to renovate a freight train into a meeting space for the Gallipolis Railroad Freight Station Museum. Hardlines Design Company is providing architectural and historic preservation consulting and Kramer Engineers is providing MEP services. The main architectural work is to finish the interior renovation of a passenger car to include an accessible restroom, catering kitchen, and a meeting room and to update the exterior painted finish. This passenger train once carried circus workers who lived in self-contained studios that had a kitchenette, bathroom, and fold-down bunk. One of the rooms is being converted into an accessible restroom and kitchen and the other will be restored back to its historic condition in the future. The project is expected to be bidding in late 2025!

     
L: The interior of the passenger car has already been partially gutted. R: One of the intact studio “apartments.”

On July 26, 2025, Hardlines Design Company was honored by having our name included on a paver in the Walk of Fame area under the marquee at the Lincoln Theatre. Also inducted were the artist Elijah Pierce, whose family flew in from Texas to attend the ceremony, and the architecture firm Moody Nolan, represented by Jonathan Moody, son of founder Curt Moody. President Charissa Durst and Project Architect Vivian Majtenyi, both of whom worked on the Lincoln Theatre rehabilitation, were present. Jennifer McAdam of HDC also attended, which was her first (but hopefully not last!) visit to the Lincoln. In her speech, Executive Director Suzan Bradford stated that she always thought HDC should have had their name on the building somewhere, only to find out that Vivian had included the name of the contractor and HDC in hieroglyphs around the auditorium doors, and was now pleased that HDC’s name is now a permanent part of the building site. We at HDC are now looking forward on collaborating with Suzan on a book to mark the 100^th anniversary of the building in 2028!

   
L: Jennifer McAdam, Charissa Durst, Vivian Majtenyi, and Suzan Bradford on stage at the Lincoln Theatre. R: Jennifer, Vivian, and Charissa with the HDC paver under the marquee.

     
Ziti happily going over a jump at a recent CPE trial (left) and posing calmly on a sunny day in the park (right).

Ziti has been recovering so well and racing around the yard and parks like crazy that she has started attending agility trials again to dissipate that energy. We started her off in late summer 2024 with just one weekend day and a few events, moving to two weekend days with a few events each day, and finally moving in March 2025 to running all 9 or 10 events on both Saturday and Sunday. After such a weekend, Ziti goes in for some massage therapy and acupuncture. As the weather gets warmer she will be back on a FastCAT run as well! But sometimes, Ziti loves nothing better than just going to the park to run around (or pose) in the sun. Agility photograph by Deanna Norwood Photography.

     
Left: Detail of attic dormer at the Clifton Opera House. Right: Detail of Sign Plaque at Clifton School.

HDC has been working on preparing construction packages to rehabilitate the historic Cedarville Opera House in Cedarville and the historic Clifton Opera House and Clifton School in nearby Clifton. All three buildings were constructed in the late 19^th century and have varying degrees of roof, brick wall, and wood window deterioration. HDC commissioned MAJ Consulting LLC to take high resolution photos of the exterior of each building and stitch the photos together into a high-resolution 3D exterior model of the building that is so clear we can conduct an exterior assessment and prepare remediation drawings based on the model alone! This method is extremely helpful for steeply sloped roofs and tall buildings where exterior conditions had to be observed and assessed from the ground.

Detail of Fire Department Hose Tower at the Cedarville Opera House.

     
Left: View of west side looking north before construction. Right: View of west side looking south during construction with new curb and dog waste station.

HDC was commissioned by the City of Columbus to make improvements to Carol Stewart Village, a former 1980s hotel converted into housing for youths aged 18-24 who have aged out of the foster care system. Although the buildings had been renovated since the 1980s, the site around the building had not. HDC’s project includes the replacement of 70 packaged terminal air conditioners, or PTACs, ductless, self-contained air conditioning units that heat and cool small areas such as motel rooms and studio apartments. These units are also being anchored to prevent someone from breaking in from the outside. Sitework improvements include replacing crumbling concrete curbs and adding curbs where they do not exist now. The project also includes new dog waste disposal stations, which have already resulted in cleaner lawn areas. Another project repaved the parking lots. This project is just the beginning of improvements being made at Carol Stewart Village. Read about it in this Columbus Underground article.

Clara Reed, an undergraduate student at the School of Architecture at The Ohio State University, worked at HDC in the summer of 2024, assisting with renderings for the Mount Zion Baptist Church renovation in Athens and preparing Revit construction drawings for the Ohio National Guard Tarlton Armory near Lancaster. In her final semester at OSU, Clara is working at HDC again, assisting with the Revit models for multiple renovation projects. We are also proud that Clara has been accepted into the graduate architecture programs at both the University of Cincinnati and the University of Virginia!

L: 1892 photo of when the building was the home of the Crystal Ice Manufacturing & Cold Storage Company. R: 2024 photograph of the building that is half the size of what it once was

HDC was commissioned to prepare a Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) documentation of the old Spaghetti Warehouse building on West Broad Street in Columbus prior to its anticipated demolition for new development on the site. I think just about everyone I know in Columbus has eaten there at one time or another. Since the restaurant was a landmark in Columbus for so long, part of the documentation package includes a 3D scan that can be converted into a video to allow the public to view. Unfortunately, the cost of scanning the over 29,000 SF building was more than the owners were willing to spend. HDC offered a compromise to use a non-construction accurate scanning method on just the restaurant portion that results in a walk-through model, which is less than the 25,000 SF maximum size Truescan’s equipment can handle. HDC’s president Charissa Durst prepared the historical report and plan drawings and HDC’s trusty photographer Jeff Bates took the photographs.

The Spaghetti Warehouse is a chain of restaurants that originated in an old pillow factory in Dallas in 1969. When the Spaghetti Warehouse opened in Columbus in a former ice manufacturing building in April 1978, it was the first location outside of Texas and with the ability to seat 800, was the largest location in the Spaghetti Warehouse chain. The Columbus restaurant was always a tenant in the building, occupying the entire first floor and the mezzanine level of the south wing. The kitchen occupied the center section of the building and the north portion had very low ceilings featuring a 1950s diner theme. The upper two floors of the north and south sections were used as storage. The restaurant had to evacuate the premises in March 2022 after the roof collapsed over the kitchen. Without needed repairs the building was deemed unsafe to occupy and the restaurant moved to a new location downtown at Columbus Commons.

Click here to read about the history of the building and click here to view the interior scanned model of the restaurant.