TOLEDO — It is moving week for the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department. Most department operations are closed to the public this week while the agency relocates a few blocks across downtown Toledo, from its longtime home at 635 N. Erie St. to a new home at 1933 Spielbusch Ave., The Toledo Blade reported.
The department’s building is closed Nov. 9 through Nov. 13 for the move, and the department is scheduled to reopen and resume operations at the Spielbusch Avenue location on Monday, Nov. 16, according to the department’s announcements. Vital Statistics services — birth and death certificates — remain available on select days during the move, WTOL reported.
The new home is a familiar downtown landmark: the seven-story former Pastoral Center of the Catholic Diocese of Toledo at 1933 Spielbusch Ave. The health district purchased the Diocese building, and its renovation plans fitted the building to house the department’s full range of services — clinical services including reproductive health and immunizations, Women, Infants and Children services, vital statistics, environmental health and Healthy Start, according to the health district’s own project documents.
The move has been years in the making, and the math drove it. When Toledo officials weighed the purchase, the city’s economic development director told a City Council agenda review committee that the Erie Street building needed roughly $10.6 million in capital investment over 10 years, including about $4.2 million in immediate repairs — while buying and renovating the Spielbusch building was materially cheaper, according to a summary of that committee discussion. The city package behind the deal included $5 million in support, structured as Toledo’s purchase share plus a loan to the health department.
The old site’s future is already sketched in. After the relocation, the city has planned to demolish the Erie Street building, and the Ohio Department of Development’s brownfield program lists a $571,342 award for asbestos abatement and demolition of the health department building to prepare the 1.8-acre downtown site for future redevelopment.
Residents will feel the changeover in small ways first. The department is closed Wednesday, Nov. 11, for Veterans Day, per its latest notices, and its first public business at the new address comes quickly: the department will hold a public hearing on proposed fees for five of its environmental health programs on Thursday, Nov. 19, at 1933 Spielbusch Ave., according to the department.
For most Lucas County residents, the department is the place for the paperwork of everyday life — birth and death certificates from Vital Statistics, immunizations and clinic visits, restaurant and septic permits through environmental health, and WIC benefits for young families. That is why the move week matters beyond government: anyone with a certificate to pick up or a clinic appointment to keep needs the Spielbusch address, not the Erie Street one they have used for years. The department’s posted weekday hours run 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. most days, according to its website.
The timing puts the move in the middle of one of the department’s busiest public stretches.
In recent weeks the department has been Toledo’s front door for health questions after the October hazardous materials incident involving glycidyl methacrylate — the same incident now at the center of a lawsuit by eight plaintiffs against a tank carrier over the October Toledo chemical release — and community health work continues around it, from flu clinics to UToledo Health’s drive to fill 400 hygiene kits for Toledo families.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. Confirmed: the Erie Street building is closed Nov. 9-13 for the move, the new address is 1933 Spielbusch Ave., reopening is set for Monday, Nov. 16, and Vital Statistics stays available on select days during the move, according to The Toledo Blade, WTOL and the department. Still to come: the department’s confirmed hours and any service changes at the new site, and the city’s timeline for the Erie Street demolition.
What happens next is Monday morning: the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department opens at 1933 Spielbusch Ave. on Nov. 16, the environmental-fee hearing follows at the new location on Nov. 19, and Lucas County residents should head to Spielbusch — not Erie Street — for clinic visits, certificates and permits from here on.
Photo: Limpfster94, CC BY-SA