AKRON, Ohio — FirstEnergy will be moving its corporate headquarters from their General Office, the downtown Akron location, to their West Akron campus on White Pond Drive, according to a statement from the company Wednesday.
In a statement shared with 3News on Thursday, a spokesperson for the company wrote, in part, “Since March 2020, when employees began working from home due to the pandemic, the General Office has been largely unoccupied by FirstEnergy employees. Of the 925 employees who had reported to the facility, 90% are designed as “mobile,” which means they predominantly work from home.”
FirstEnergy also said that they will be transitioning out of their Brecksville location, as well as offices in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
“It’s good that they’re keeping their headquarters in Akron, that’s positive for us,” said Steve Millard, President and CEO of the Greater Akron Chamber. “I think leaving downtown is obviously difficult for downtown, we’re really looking forward to working with them to figure out what’s next for that building.”
According to their Wednesday statement, FirstEnergy will be purchasing the building on South Main Street, writing, “FirstEnergy currently leases its corporate headquarters from McKinley, Inc. through 2035. We recently provided notice to exercise our option to purchase the building in accordance with the lease agreement. This step will allow FirstEnergy to end its long-term lease, providing the flexibility to implement the company’s facilities optimization plan and move employees to other reporting locations in the area.”
Millard said he hopes to work with the company’s new CEO to ensure there’s a positive use for the building.
“We want to make sure that building has a future as a cornerstone of our economic equation in downtown Akron,” Millard said.
Given the pre-existing shift to a work from home structure for many employees who once worked in downtown Akron, downtown businesses 3News spoke with said they weren’t extremely concerned about FirstEnergy’s departure from the downtown space, citing other businesses who still remain, and the use of online ordering and delivery services to support business.
“We have a really loyal base of customers in general, and they’re not all FirstEnergy people,” said Alicia Kennedy, owner of Stray Dog Café, located across the street from the current FirstEnergy offices. “We adjusted post pandemic with all of the office people in downtown Akron not being here at all, and I think it’s going to be a similar wave of not having a couple more business workers. Generally, I don’t think it’s going to affect us very much.”
A few doors down at The Tea Lady, owner Renea Woods-Baylor voiced some concerns about the company’s move, but still said she’s confident in the strength of downtown businesses.
“It shook me up a little bit, but it’s not going to tear me apart,” she said. “It’s not going to make me say ‘oh, my business is over.’”
Woods-Baylor is opening up her new location on South Main Street just days ahead of Mother’s Day, ready for the holiday rush. Her business sells coffees, teas, and pastries, and while she says people can pop in for a sweet treat or drink, her business is more centered around offering a tea room experience, inviting people to stay for a longer period of time and enjoy an afternoon tea.
“Knowing that none of the employees will be down here, I know that’s going to impact the businesses, especially the small businesses here in downtown Akron,” she said. “We have counted on people that work and live downtown, and for the ones that are leaving, we want you to still remember to come back downtown.”
Kennedy, Woods-Baylor and Millard ask that people continue to frequent downtown Akron and support local businesses.
“Not only FirstEnergy, but other companies have a different kind of workforce now, it’s a little bit more hybrid, so that’s requiring us to think about how is downtown more of a destination, and what do we do to create that pull downtown?” said Millard. “Not only for people to come to visit and spend some money, but also for companies to attract people in?”
“I know that being downtown, us small business owners, we’re used to those types of situations happening, and I think that we’re strong enough to really overcome that kind of situation,” said Woods-Baylor. “We’ve dealt with being totally shut down for a year, and I know for the ones that survived that, we can handle that.”
“I know that there’s going to be a couple regular customers that I’m going to miss, but there’s not very many, and hopefully they still come back and visit,” Kennedy said.
3News reached out to the City of Akron for reaction to the move, but have not heard back. We will post any updates in this story.