Streetsboro’s new City Hall will serve as a community hub

The once-little farming community that has grown to become one of the largest industrial and retail centers in Portage County officially has its first city center. 

The view of Streetsboro's new city hall from state Route 43 and the Streetsboro Fire Department on the far left. City hall, the fire department and the splash pad currently make up what is known as the city center complex. Mayor Glenn Broska was at the helm of the city center complex project. He said one of the installations that he is most proud of is the array of flag poles that stands in front of the new city hall building. Jeremy Brown/The Portager

 

It was single-digit temperatures Friday, Jan. 23, when Andrews Moving and Storage Company began transporting computers and furnishings to the new building at 9206 State Route 43, the first official city center complex and City Hall in Streetsboro’s history. 

“All of the employees had their stuff packed the week prior. We had totes and stuff like that, and we were ready to go,” Mayor Glenn Broska said. “The movers came back on Saturday and moved furniture and stuff and were able to get in and get out of here. A lot of the employees came in on Saturday and got everything up and running, and we were ready to rock Monday morning at 8 o’clock.” 

This isn’t the first time that Streetsboro City Hall has been located at 9206 State Route 43. City Hall had occupied the former Wise Elementary School at that location from 1989 until 2017. (Prior to using the school, City Hall was located on the second floor of the Streetsboro police station, which, at that time, was in an old house on state Route 303.)

City council had inquired about having the old school building renovated to fix several issues, including mold and a leaky roof, but a renovation was estimated to cost around $12 million; that would have been about twice the cost of building an entirely new structure, so city council went in that direction.

City council members were determined to keep City Hall at the center of town, so they decided to demolish the former school and build a new building in its place. 

In 2017, City Hall was relocated to a temporary location at 555 Frost Rd., and city officials began seeking funds to build a new City Hall building. Demolition of the old school began in 2019 using a Community Development Block Grant, with the portion serving as the fire department demolished later. 

Legislation was created in 2023 to start designing the building, and a groundbreaking ceremony took place in 2024. LevelHEADS Construction was hired for the project, and construction was completed in late 2025. The project was funded by a municipal bond at the cost of $7.8 million.

“This is the first time we’ve actually had a purpose-built building for City Hall,” Streetsboro Clerk of Council Caroline Kremer said. 

The new City Hall building is about 15,000 square feet with four conference rooms, ample office space and several amenities that Executive Assistant Melissa Procop said will be wholeheartedly embraced by staff. The former location of City Hall on Frost Road was small and required staff to work in cubicles in a building with few windows and sparse daylight. Now most of them have their own offices, and there’s an abundance of windows throughout the building to let in natural light, which she said will help elevate spirits. There’s also an interior glassed-in courtyard that incorporates natural elements and merges indoor spaces with the outside.

Streetsboro Residential Building Clerk Audra Geving’s new office has an interior window that faces the courtyard, through which she can issue permits and carry out daily business, something that was missing from the old location. She said the new building also has a heightened sense of security.

“I feel like it’s more secure,” Geving said. “We’re going to have badges to get in, so that’s kind of cool, as opposed to us all just having random keys that sometimes work and sometimes don't. We'll have badges to be able to enter from the side and also from the front, and we’re locked in here, too, so people can’t just come back here; this door is locked.”

The city center complex currently includes the new City Hall building, the fire station, a splash pad for children and a large oval gathering space. Procop said the oval will serve as a space where concerts and community activities could take place.

This summer, the city plans to build an all-inclusive playground at the complex, as well as a gazebo in the oval for musical events. 

Procop said City Hall planners have had talks about holding a flea market in the gathering space during the warmer months and having an artist create ice sculptures there in the winter, but plans have not been established yet.

Broska said Streetsboro has never had a downtown area because it was largely a quiet, rural farming community up until the 1950s and 1960s.

Then, the Twinsburg Chrysler plant, the Walton Hills Ford plant and the Lordstown Chevy plant were built, at which time Streetsboro rapidly became the home for affordable housing for those factory workers. The housing boom, along with the opening of the Ohio Turnpike in Streetsboro in 1955, led to more retail and industrial infrastructure in the city. That was further perpetuated by the construction of I-480 in 1966, which connected Streetsboro to Bedford.

“It’s very similar to Fairlawn and Montrose; it’s kind of just the way it evolved,” Broska said. “We grew up from an agricultural community and, at that time, we basically had the things that the farmers needed. There was kind of a main street, which has always been here on 14, but nothing really grew up around it. It grew kind of like an octopus; there’s like four or five different ways you can go from downtown.”

He said the new city center complex will become the downtown that Streetsboro never had.

“It’s going to become the nucleus of the community,” Broska said. “We’ve never had a downtown, and we’ve never had a central gathering place, and now we have a place where the citizens will be able to come and recreate. We’ll be able to have programs and things that we were never able to have before. It’s essentially going to be our downtown.”