(Top) Rick Maltos of Musson Construction uses a nail gun on the future home of the Fresno Firemen’s Museum in April 2008.

(Bottom) Steve Geil in front of the redeveloped Hobbs-Parsons Building in April 2008. Geil redeveloped the building into the new home of the Fresno Fire Department’s headquarters.

(Photos by Ralph Berrett)

Fresno, CA – For Steve Geil, the idea for redeveloping the old Hobbs-Parsons Building came because of his love for baseball.

Geil had grown tired of leaving events at Grizzlies Stadium (now Chukchansi Park) and always seeing the historic building across the street.

“I was angry that we had a building that looked so bad across from that beautiful stadium,” Geil, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation serving Fresno County, said in an April interview. “Every time I’d come out of an event at Grizzlies Stadium it would just tick me off that this eyesore was here day after day after day. So I wanted to do something about that.”

His original vision was for Hobbs-Parsons, built in 1903, to become a space for offices and a restaurant, but plans shifted when the Fresno Fire Department approached him about moving its headquarters there. The department and Geil agreed on a seven-year lease with three-year option years.

“I was gonna move my own personal office in here, but the chief is in there now,” Geil laughed.

As work was being done, some aspects of the building that had been hidden for years were rediscovered. Photographs from the 1920s showed arches that had been stuccoed over for many years, which have now been uncovered and turned into windows. Also, after digging through seven layers on the building, the original color saw the light of day again.

Other plans for the property include a fire department museum one end of the building, and a parking lot in the back that is not yet finished. All the money, labor and subcontractors for the endeavor were local.

“This is a Fresno project,” Geil said.

Geil has done a half-dozen projects in downtown Fresno since the opening of the old Grizzlies Stadium, and probably would not have done any of them if the ballpark hadn’t been constructed. From looking at other cities who have revitalized their downtown areas, he discovered that many of them had begun with a sports venue.

“For me it said that the city’s vision of the future of downtown, that they were serious about revitalizing it,” Geil said. “The day that the City Council said ‘let’s do it,’ and they signed the documents that made that Grizzlies Stadium actually happen, was the day I said I’m gonna invest in downtown.”

Geil has a passion for some of downtown’s historical buildings, such as the J.C. Penney Building and the Bank of Italy Building. He likes to tackle projects with buildings that could not be rebuilt today with the same materials or design, because of the cost.

“When I look at a building,” Geil said, “I look at it and say how can we save the architectural beauty of a building, that will never be built like that again?

His goal is to someday build a brand-new multi-story building downtown, made up of four to six stories, a high-density project. He’s also looking at a couple of other downtown buildings he would like to save, one being on the historical register.

Geil can slowly see downtown Fresno undergo revitalization.

“I think we’ve had the tipping point,” he said. “I think you’re going to see some incredible projects and dreams that are on the drawing board in the next five years, and we are going to be so proud of what Fresno is becoming.”