Downtown's Locked Doors Open for One Day. What's Behind Them — and Why Only One Day?

Most days, the historic buildings lining downtown Mansfield's streets are locked to the public. On Saturday, Sept. 19, eight of them won't be.

Downtown Mansfield Inc. is organizing the fall 2026 Secret City Tour, a self-guided walk through spaces many residents have never seen from the inside — buildings in transition that connect the city's past with possible futures for its downtown core. Tickets are $25 per person, and the tour runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., starting at DMI HQ / Social on Main, 128 North Main Street. Tickets are available online or at Social on Main the day of the event, and questions can be directed to Downtown Mansfield Inc. at 419-522-0099 or [email protected].

The one-day opening also surfaces a harder question: What is behind downtown's closed doors, and why aren't those spaces doing more public work year-round?

What's on the tour

The eight stops are 331 Prescott Street, 300 Springmill Street, 193 North Main Street, 124 North Main Street, 137 North Main Street, 20 North Mulberry Street, 21 East Fourth Street and 51 East Fourth Street.

Some carry deep local history. Oak Hill Cottage is a Gothic Revival house museum built in 1847 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, now operated by the Richland County Historical Society. The Bissman Building at 193 North Main Street is a five-story commercial block built in 1886 that served as a wholesale grocery distribution center until the mid-1970s and gained wider recognition as a filming location for The Shawshank Redemption.

Other stops include the Carpenter Block, a three-story stone building from 1890 that has housed restaurants and businesses, and a building at 51 East Fourth Street that has cycled through lives as a motor company, recruiting center and electrical supply house before becoming home to a restaurant and Cypress Hill Winery.

Participants are advised to wear comfortable clothing and prepare to walk. Photography is permitted.

Buildings in limbo — and a redevelopment pipeline

The tour lands at a moment when downtown's future is actively being negotiated. At least one of the eight stops — 137 North Main Street — is part of the Downtown Forward redevelopment project, which secured $5 million in Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits to convert 14 historic buildings around the Brickyard into 102 residential units with activated first-floor commercial space.

An Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program award document describes many of the upper floors in those buildings as long vacant. Construction is expected to begin in 2026, with completion projected for late 2027, restoring historic features while modernizing building systems. The 14 buildings were donated by John and Mimi Fernyak through Engwiller Properties and are located around the Brickyard on North Diamond Street, North Main Street, East Temple Court and East Fourth Street.

A separate Downtown Mansfield Forward – B project received state tax credits to redevelop the long-vacant former Hautzenroeder & Co. cigar manufacturers building into mixed-use space with retail, office and residential components.

Not every tour stop sits empty. Oak Hill Cottage operates as a museum, and 51 East Fourth Street already houses active businesses. But the gap between those working spaces and the ones with vacant upper floors captures the tension the tour makes visible: buildings that have been part of downtown's fabric for decades remain largely inaccessible to the public that walks past them every day.

A packed September downtown

The Secret City Tour is one piece of a busy September calendar Downtown Mansfield Inc. promoted, which also includes the Labor Day Parade, At Last: An Evening with Etta James — a pay-what-you-can outdoor concert at The Brickyard on Sept. 5 at 7:30 p.m., presented by Renaissance Theatre and Downtown Mansfield Inc. — the Fab Four & More Fest, and the September Final Friday Concert on Sept. 25 at The Brickyard.

All of it unfolds alongside the $20.3 million Main Street Improvement Project, which is expected to wrap up by the end of October and will bring two-way traffic, updated streetscape elements and enhanced public spaces to the downtown core.

The question the tour leaves open

Downtown Mansfield Inc., led by CEO Jennifer Kime, describes its mission as stimulating economic development and creating a positive image of downtown as a place to live, work, shop, visit and invest. The Secret City Tour — run as a semi-annual event with spring and fall editions since at least 2013 — is one of its most visible tools for drawing residents into that conversation. A spring edition was held May 2.

But a $25 ticket and a five-hour window twice a year only sharpens the underlying question: with redevelopment money flowing and construction timelines ticking, will these buildings become spaces the community can actually use — or will the tour remain the exception that proves how much of downtown's historic core stays locked the other 363 days?