In late 2003, Bon-Ton Stores Inc. acquired the Elder Beerman chain for $92.8 million. With the acquisition came the department store at 150 High St. In March 2009, Bon-Ton closed the store due to under-performance.
Area stakeholders discussed the potential use of the building as an educational center, and at one point, the building was on the market for $2 million.
The Elder Beerman building stuck out like a sore thumb as other developments slowly began to pop up, including the $8.6 million Mercantile Lofts that opened in 2012 and the Journal-News building renovation.
The non-profit CORE Fund took ownership of the building in October 2013 in an effort to engage with area developers and stakeholders to fill the space.
At that time, CORE Fund Executive Director Mike Dingeldein created a conceptual plan to show prospective investment partners how to move the project forward one piece at a time. Through site control, the fund works to facilitate strategic building purchases for the city, revitalize them, and turn them over as quickly as possible to tenants and eventually, new owners.
In August 2014, Kettering Health Network announced it would be expanding its services by opening a Joslin Diabetes Centers at Fort Hamilton Hospital in the first floor of the former Elder Beerman building.
In December 2014, Hamilton couple Steve and Sheri Jackson announced they would be opening a 3,000-square-foot grocery store in the store-front floor of the building.
And in February, InsideOut Studio announced it would be moving its nonprofit art studio from the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities Liberty Adult Center to the final Elder Beerman storefront, shooting for a summer opening.
With Monday’s announcement that StarTek Inc., a call center company with multinational operations, would be taking the second floor of the former department store, the building is about 50 percent filled, Dingeldein said.
Construction is expected to begin in April for StarTek’s office space, he said.
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