One of those clocks is near the former Rogers Jewelers downtown. The carillon outside of the City Building was manufactured by the Verdin Company. The same company also made the Pulley Memorial Carillon at Miami University in Oxford, according to a company catalog.
Now, Verdin stands to make an even more resounding impression in Middletown via his fourth Pendleton Art Center, which is slated to at least partly open by the end of the year.
There are already Pendletons in Rising Sun, Ind.; Ashland, Ky.; and Cincinnati. “In Middletown, there is an enormous difference. The thing that was very appealing to me about MT was from the economic development side,” Verdin said.
“A friend of mine did West Chester and he said (of Middletown), ‘Oh, no, it’s dead.’ But everybody said Middletown’s dead. When you go to Middletown, they have a super location halfway between Dayton and Cincinnati, which is a great opportunity for growth coming in from both ways.”
City Manager Judy Gilleland finds Verdin’s enthusiasm infectious.
“He has a glimmer in his eyes. He’s very excited about this project. You could see that spark in his personality,” she said.
Now, that spark really wants to light a fire in Middletown.
“Middletown has it, but somebody has to say ‘go, let’s do it,’” Verdin said.
Getting started
Verdin said the family business found itself spurring the economic development with its adornments.
“What happened was, in going to these small towns, we’re talking about revitalization. We would work on gateways into the town. We would work with trying to enhance the downtowns. Let’s say we had a typical downtown, as you did (in Middletown), and Wal-Mart would come in and put something way out here at the circle (around town). And that pulled the vendors out of town.
“If they wanted to bring the people back to town, we would build things like this — amenities that would enhance the downtown,” Verdin said.
Then the Verdin company came to Over the Rhine in Cincinnati.
We saw this area and it was in bad shape. So we just thought we could buy a building and felt that every time we would do something, it would enhance other people doing the same thing. Restorations of property started here. Slow, but it started,” Verdin said.
Verdin’s company ended up buying an eight-story building in Over the Rhine that had been an old factory. Verdin crossed paths with an artist named Donald Lipski, who “took our junk and turned it into art. I was amazed at what he did,” Verdin said.
Then Lipski had a suggestion about the building: Why don’t you put artists in it?
At first, Verdin balked, not because of art itself, but because “I didn’t think artists would pay the rent.”
After doing some research, however, “We found the distribution of art just didn’t work. We found out that somebody, in order to make art, had to work out of their basement or some unique location by themselves normally and couldn’t find the proper distribution for their work.”
So some kind of art center seemed to be the answer. At the time, Verdin thought, “Maybe we could fill one story with this.” Fast forward two decades later, and the Pendleton fills all eight floors of the building and packs the place during its Final Friday events.
Next came the building in Rising Sun, Ind., which Pendleton took over in 2000.
“Rising Sun saw it on TV and said we have a problem. We just don’t have an identity. The casino came to town, but we don’t have an identity. Let’s see if it works,” Verdin recalled.
It did, and it became “an important element in downtown and helped the growth of the buildings in Rising Sun and enhanced the community,” Verdin said.
Some time after that, Ashland, Ky., which like Middletown was an ailing AK city, came calling.
“None of this was our plan ... we took a town that was devastated, very similar to Middletown. We thought, oh boy, this is a tough one, because of the economic hit they took. The downtown was dead. All those businesses were going out.”
But after it opened in Ashland five years ago, “Stores started to really crank up,” he said. “They have a nice little biz community. The cafe worked really well. Stores started to reactivate themselves. So we did a First Friday there and it is absolutely packed. So they’re really thrilled with it. It’s probably the anchor tenant for the whole community.”
And now Middletown has come calling, at least partly because Verdin’s marketing director Suzanne Sizer, hails from Middletown.
“I talked Jim into coming up there, because there isn’t a better place. My heart is there, even though I haven’t lived there in years,” she said.
Whatever the case, the Pendleton Art Centers haven’t looked for their towns so much as the towns have looked for them. Even though Middletown’s hasn’t opened yet, Verdin thinks it may already be having an effect, in that Cincinnati State and Technical College plans to come to Middletown.
“The schools decided to come in, but why? Was it just an accident? It helped that they saw somebody like us starting to do something as opposed to nobody doing anything,” Verdin said.
Once Pendleton fully opens next year, Middletown’s and the others will “be working relatively close to each other. They can help each other and pass each other ideas. Artists working in Ashland can come over to Middletown. It gives (artists) an expansion possibility,” Verdin said.
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