When Michael Owen officially opened the Jenks building in Fall 2020 with several art galleries, a book shop and small department store, the possibilities were endless. “If you can set your hopes and do the work, and transmogrify something, you can take it to a place that nobody would have ever expected it to go to,” Owen told the Falls Free Press in an interview at the time. “We can create a place where we can show the benefits of urban recycling and people will want to be someplace that isn’t the same as everywhere else.”
Since closing at the beginning of 2022, the crew at the Jenks building have been hard at work transforming the former hidden gem into a gigantic art and shopping destination for downtown Cuyahoga Falls.
“We like to say it’s been born again,” explains Owen’s wife and partner, Jodie Oates Owen, in a recent Fallscast interview. “When we first came to the Jenks… we didn’t have tenants. It was just us, so we had to do something creative. Not changing the use of the building, we wanted to just keep moving forward with something and people in the community started coming along aside of us and it kind of became a hub. It became a hub for musicians. A hub for artists. Everybody just came and did their own thing.”
As Jenks reopens on Saturday, February 12, Falls Outdoor Company, a brand new venture for owners JT and Ashley, also has their grand opening in the former Trust Books room, selling kayaking, camping, and outdoor gear.
“They came by because they heard the music playing out of the machine shop,” recalls Oates. “I asked them what their dream was and they told me ‘to have their own outdoor company.’ And I said ‘well you stay right here.’”
The grand reopening celebration begins at noon on Saturday with multiple gallery shows, as well as live music throughout the day. In addition to “Natural Impressions,” in the Middle Earth gallery, a show made up of different mediums about organic natural objects in life from five artists, Jeff and Sharon Newhouse will feature a new show of work about the towpath and a celebration of our local parks.
“They’re paintings that she made and photographs he took. So many people that have seen them already are amazed that they’ve walked by or biked by these things,” remarks Owen.
The musical lineup will also have a mixture of new and old faces, featuring pianist Brian Bacon, acoustic artist Katy Robinson, and ending the evening with Hayden Gilbert and the Ruckus.
For more information about the Jenks grand reopening and the music schedule, visit https://www.facebook.com/Jenks1929/.
You can hear more from Michael and Jodie on this week’s bonus Fallscast interview.
