Law firm gives new life to city landmark

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

One of Van Wert’s landmark buildings has a new lease on life with its recent conversion by a local law firm.

Keister & Baker Law Firm LLC has spent months renovating the former U.S. Post Office building on South Market Street into offices for the law firm.

The building, constructed in 1915 as a combination federal office building and post office, sat vacant for a number of years after the post office relocated to its present location on East Main Street. The facility was later renovated into the Van Wert Municipal Court building. When Municipal Court Judge Jill Leatherman decided to relocate the court to the former First Financial Bank building at the corner of Main and Washington streets a few years ago, the former post office building again sat vacant.

However, attorneys Steve Keister and Aaron Baker decided to purchase the building as a new location for their offices, which had been located on the second floor of the former First Financial Building, but later moved to Westwood Drive when that building was sold to Van Wert Municipal Court.

“We got a good deal on the building,” said Baker, who added he likes the historic architecture of the building, as well as the space the structure offers for his firm’s offices, with additional space available for others looking for a downtown location.

He noted that one of the biggest purchases needed for the building was a new HVAC system to replace the faulty old system — one of the reasons Judge Leatherman decided to find a new location for her court.

The layout of the building has been changed considerably from its courtroom days, with walls added to create offices for Keister, Baker, the firm’s two associate attorneys, Keri McClure and Justin Dickman, and its support staff members.

The layout also includes a conference room, large foyer area, restrooms, and two large rooms that could be rented out as office space to other businesses.

Baker’s brother, Seth, who has a degree in landscape design, helped with exterior landscaping, while lighting fixtures left from a makeover of St Mark’s Lutheran Church and some furniture from The Hotel Marsh and other historic local buildings were purchased by Aaron Baker for the building.

During a tour of the building earlier this week, Baker pointed out some of features that remain from the building’s days as a post office, including footsteps worn into the terrazzo flooring of the foyer where walk-up windows used to be located for the purchase of stamps and other postal items.

Many of the offices include large windows, except for Dickman’s windowless office, which used to be a holding cell for defendants during Municipal Court days. Decorative items on the building’s walls also hearken back to Van Wert’s historic days.

An office created for the firm’s real estate title research staff includes its own stand-alone air-conditioning system.

Future projects for the building would likely include work on the facility’s large basement and the second floor of the structure, which used to house federal offices when the building was a post office, but have not been used much since that time — although Baker said those projects are not likely something that will come soon.

A number of local officials and business people, including the contractors involved in renovating the building, were invited to a reception held Friday, as well as a ribboncutting ceremony celebrating the building’s opening.

Aaron Baker cuts the ribbon on the renovation of the former post office/Van Wert Municipal Court building on South Walnut Street. Looking on are family, staff members, contractors, and various officials, including Ohio Representative Craig Riedel, Van Wert Mayor Jerry  Mazur and Van Wert Area Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Stacy Adam.