A theater, a roller rink, an arcade, apartments and other tenants all once found a home inside a century-old building in Fountain. Now, a small hub for health and wellness is forming on the second floor and plans for a restaurant or shops on the first floor are underway.

One of the few remaining historic buildings in Fountain, Woodman Hall was suffering from blight when the Fountain Urban Renewal Authority bought it in 2018 for $450,000, because of its potential to become catalyst to encourage more new businesses to move in along Ohio Avenue, said Kimberly Bailey, the authority’s director. The two-story brick building across from city hall was most recently a thrift store and food pantry on the first floor where goods sometimes spilled out into the sidewalk.

Zenner Yoga owner Jennifer Clark also saw potential in the building and moved her yoga studio in during 2019, while the second floor was still a maze of five apartments.

“I knew it had a lot of history,” she said, noting she wanted to restore it as a gathering place for a community.

Incorporated into one of the building’s apartments was the historic gem of the hall, the original stage, where the yoga studio found a home. Cream colored and airy with room for 12 students on the stage, Clark also draws in a virtual crowd of students of former Fountain residents who have moved on to their next military posting.

The studio found a home in the building well ahead of other business, and the studio has seen the building’s transformation up close.

“She equally has the passion for the building. She really worked hard with us to convince us to let her enter when she was seeking to enter,” Bailey said.

Life Force Energy and Healing followed the yoga studio into the building and 500 square feet on the second floor awaits a new tenant, Bailey said. She expects that space will go up for lease in the first quarter of next year.

The more visible ground floor is slated for major change in the coming months, when large new windows will be cut into the brick along its southern side to mirror those along Ohio to help welcome visitors into either a new restaurant or three shops, Bailey said.

“We are trying to exude the historical character of the property to the best of our ability and then also conform it for ultimate performance for a new generation of users,” she said.

For example, while the embossed tin ceiling has been eroded by years of utility problems from the apartments above it, the ceiling could be preserved using a quilt effect that would allow portions to be replaced and some preserved, she said. A future tenant could help guide plans for the ceiling and the designs for the ground floor as a whole.

The infrastructure work necessary to bring in a business for the first floor is expected to be done by Valentine’s Day, and the authority has hired a broker to recruit a tenant with business know-how.

“They have to come with a business plan. They have to come with vendor credentials, they have to come with, you know, a goal in mind of serving the community because that’s our mission,” Bailey said.

A restaurant would be the preferred tenant because it could fill the 2,732 square feet of the main floor. The authority may also split the space into three units. One could still serve food, but likely on the scale of a grab-and-go spot, she said.

Tenants are expected to invest in their own spaces, putting in their own flooring and other investments to make it their own, Bailey said.

Building represents a $900,000 investment for the authority, including the purchase price. The Environmental Protection Agency provided $26,000 to help test the building for asbestos and lead paint. The grant was part of a much larger effort to assess properties with historical contamination throughout the region.

The authority will see return on its investment through sales and use taxes that will support future projects.

“This property really has never truly performed in the district from a revenue perspective. And so we’d like to see it come back to its commercial use of origin,” Bailey said.