Description:
The first of W.K. Kellogg's gifts to the people of Battle Creek, the Youth Building at Garfield and West Streets opened in 1928 as the home of the Boy Scouts. The city took over building's operation in 1937 and made it the center of civic recreation programs for nearly 50 years. At its zenith, the building served about 300,000 people. Citing its deteriorating condition, the city closed the building in 1988 and slated it for demolition in the the mid-1990s. Local residents, however, launched a petition drive in 1995 to save the Gothic Revival building and convinced the city to invest funds to repair the leaking roof. Finley Properties bought the building in November 2001 for $200,000 and converted it to apartments.