Grand Pacific Junction

Grand Pacific Junction is the historic downtown shopping area for Olmsted Falls, Ohio. It is a collection of Victorian-style homes and businesses. During the 1980s, Clint Williams purchased and restored many of the original Victorian-era buildings, and they were put to use housing local businesses. Today, Grand Pacific Junction hosts Heritage Days, an annual celebration event for the local community.

Grand Pacific Junction is a collection of historic buildings along Bagley Road and is considered to be downtown Olmsted Falls. These buildings all have a similar Victorian era architecture, decoration, and style. These buildings house a variety of local businesses including restaurants, clothing stores, toy stores, antique dealers, and sweets shops. The shops create a simulation of what a downtown shopping district may have looked like in mid to late 1800s – era Olmsted Falls.

Grand Pacific Junction gets its name from the Grand Pacific Hotel, one of the larger freestanding buildings in the Junction. Originally located Lewis Road (formerly Seminary Road), the hotel was built around 1840 and was originally a seminary. It was moved to its current location sometime in the late 1850s and began its life as a hotel under the name T. Brown’s Hotel (owned by a Thomas Brown).

The hotel changed names and owners numerous times throughout the late 1800s and eventually housed a drug store in 1882 owned by the Peltz and Simmerer families. The drug store later expanded to Peltz and Simmerer Hardware and Stoves. This business was one of the most longstanding in the area and is remembered as a gift shop bearing the hardware store’s name.

Like the hotel, other buildings at the Junction were not originally at the site and were moved from other areas around the Olmsted Falls area. Other buildings in Grand Pacific Junction include a jail from the 1860s, a granary, and a carriage house that houses a tea shop called Clementine’s. Also located in the area are historic residences, including the Waring Homestead which was built in the 1830s and is one of the oldest buildings in Olmsted Falls. One of the most popular establishments in the area is the Moosehead Hoof and Ladder No. 8. Formerly known as the Bonsey Building, it was built sometime in the 1940s and was one of the city’s former town hall buildings. In 2008, it was renovated into a restaurant and made to look like an old fire station.

Grand Pacific Junction’s popularity as a shopping district and social hot spot for Olmsted Falls did not start until the 1980s when local realtor Clint Williams started to purchase the buildings. Williams, owner of Clint William’s Realty, already had some prior history of buying and resorting historic buildings. He had previously purchased the Schady’s Shell service station in 1978, renovating the building into his real estate office. When the owner of a local business decided to sell his business and retire in the 1980s Williams purchased the building and decided to renovate it.

Williams decided to purchase the other historic buildings in the area soon after. Many of them were in disrepair and locals were beginning to consider them an eyesore. Williams and other did not want the buildings to be torn down and replaced with more modern establishments, and so he garnered a lot of local support when he started his restoration and renovation projects.

Even with the support of the community, Williams still ran in to complications during construction. It is reported that his initial plans for Grand Pacific Junction were much larger. Originally, the goal was to create as close an approximation to an 1890s town as possible. However, construction delays and zoning issues forced Williams to change and scale back on some of his plans. One of the biggest issues was over parking. Across the street from Grand Pacific Junction is Mill River Plaza, a more modern shopping center. The dispute revolved around worries from Mill River Plaza that visitors to the Junction would park in the Plaza’s parking area if the Junction did not have enough parking spaces. Mill River Plaza was worried about how this might affect business. Many of the buildings, both the new construction and the retrofitted ones also needed electricity, sewage, and other plumbing work done in order to make them usable. 

According to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, portions of Olmsted Falls and Grand Pacific Junction were named a National Register Historic District. The Grand Pacific Hotel and the Bonsey Building. The Junction also serves as a gathering place for some local events such as the annual Olmsted Falls Heritage Days festival. 

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