Brilliant Entrepreneur Buys Buildings with No Aparent Vision: Let Them Sit and Decay

A local property investor is being hailed as a hero by people who have no perception of business strategy. According to sources, several properties have become the center of controversy over a bold business model that involves buying buildings and making absolutely no use of them.

In Oil City's desperate state, hope for success depends heavily on trying something bizarre that has not been tried before. No one in the history of our planet has ever thought to purchase a large chunk of business real estate and use it to sell nothing. This certainly is what the doctor ordered; a pill marked with the label "suicide."

Despite this entrepreneur having the very small window of 6 years to put businesses in his buildings, Oil City seems desperate to push him to work quicker. This seems wildly impatient considering Marshals, BFS, and Dairy Queen managed to build their structures and open up in Seneca within a few months. How Oil City can expect this man to accomplish such a task in 6 years is beyond us.

The nerve of Oil City! Not waiting 20 years is unheard of considering that in a span of 30 years, they have done nothing worthwhile themselves. Nonetheless, they have cited the man and even gone so far as to condemn his buildings because of unaddressed structural issues.

The story is well known, but for the sake of catching uninformed readers up; a New Jersey man bought several properties on Oil City's north side in 2020 during COVID. His self proclaimed goal was to help preserve the historical properties and potentially revitalize Oil City. His solution? Like every other person who can't think outside the box, he wanted to serve food.... As if the welfare residents on the north side can afford the restaurants we have now.... We'll get to this later...

Preserving the historical authenticity is an interesting motivation to accompany letting the buildings turn to ruins. Is the man hoping the broken down structures will become America's first Athens? Nope... He actually wanted the community to fix it.

The brilliant initiative did not come with budgets to pay professionals to fix his buildings. Instead, he just asked people to volunteer.

I think free means he doesn't do workmans comp...

Yeah.... How you initially convinced anyone to take on this beast for free is beyond me... No wonder they have a problem with you...

I'm no brainiac. But I imagine that impatience is exactly why we are at this point. Nobody likes to work for free. Logically, you should have bought one building, used the extra money you invested in other buildings to instead fix your first purchase, brought in a business, and then saved to buy the next building. This way you slowly progress in fixing the area; Nobody gets ticked that you are asking them to work for free.

Oil City has very little money. Our brightest ideas come in the form of asking poor people to show up to community events. Recently, a local enthusiast expressed her frustration to me stating that "if you don't show up, you have no right to complain..."

Hmmmmm.... I wonder why they neglected to put that in there?????

What if my complaint is over how dumb your community event is? I'm not talking about this year specifically. Bridge Fest was great. Light Up Night falling on a First Friday made the town a buzz. Obviously some events are working in a positive way. However, I have seen my fair share of events that sucked in Venango County.

When working for the radio station in 2019, I had to cover an event in Clintonville whose most exciting attraction was cornhole. Imagine being in my shoes, sounding like an idiot hyping up cornhole...

"You probably have never tried this phenomenal game consisting of bags of corn tossed into a hole. It's not like Venango County has rednecks."

We do too have a right to complain even if we choose not to show up. If then revival ideas are dumb, we can complain about how this town lacks imagination.

The gall of people to say we can't complain if we don't show up. If we didn't complain, we would be hypocrites for raising frustrations about these downtown properties that have been sitting for six years. The only irony is that with these citations, Oil City seems to be acting like these buildings were not already crumbling beforehand.

Oh look... It's a quote from one of your city officials back in 2020 cited by Venango Extra....

He sounds so positive about the purchase too...

You mean the buildings had problems before he purchased them? I mean, yeah, he is responsible to fix them as the owner. But why are we acting like we haven't neglected them for years? Furthermore, why are we acting like one New Jersey guy's negligence is holding the town back when all of these properties, not just his own, have absolutely no businesses functioning inside of them?

Wait... What does that one window say????

Agreed. A heart with several blood clots is still a heart. You can't argue with that!

Oil City has been declining for years with buildings vacant long before some guy from New Jersey thought to buy more property than he could handle. The Southside has a few examples with one of them not marked condemned. This is despite the building looking like it needs run over with a tank.

That fire escape looks like an inescapable death trap

Your crumbling Catholic Church is considered a historical landmark. The scaffolding brilliantly depicts our efforts to preserve something we don't have money to fix.

Why don't we have the money? Maybe because we invested an 88 thousand dollar grant on bridge lights and another 200 thousand on a fountain that remains covered most the year.

Our initiative in attracting tourists certainly gives Mount Rushmore a run for its money. People in Pittsburgh must be stoked to want to come here. "I hear Oil City discovered this new technology called LED and installed it on their bridge." The Main Street Program seems convinced people talk that way....

Known by who? Captivating compared to what? You've never seen lights before????

So famously known indeed. How could anyone outside of Oil City not know these lights exist? After all, we basically discovered electricity.

Oil City has no imagination or patience to do things the right way. Tourists rarely become interested in a small town overnight. Unless you have an out of this world concept like Mount Rushmore, you need to invest your money in building blocks that make sense. My recommendation? A giant monument depicting a middle finger on our highest mountain.

Hey! If we can draw millions to South Dakota’s ugly mountains by breaking a treaty and carving white, slave-owning presidents into the side of it, you can’t get offended by this. Plus, it’s obviously unique and bizarre enough, you know people would come to see it!

Ok, so you don't want to be known as the middle finger town. Well, you can go the slow, wise route. But it does require swallowing that ego of yours.

Oil City has some restrictions that make no freaking sense in a generation where online shopping is the dominant market. I get you want your town to look pretty. The problem is, you first need the funds for the upkeep. You don't have it!

Our friend from New Jersey who is letting buildings go to waste apparently has citations for warehousing items. According to his attorney, they are renovation supplies. The city thinks otherwise. I personally, however, don’t care. I’m more curious as to why people are not allowed to warehouse in a town that looks like crap.

Oil City, your warehouses that made this area thrive are on the outskirts of Rouseville, and they are not being used to the same potential they once were. Some of them have become fields with weeds taking over.

You don't possess industry employing people with high demand products. You aren't exporting valuable items to bring cash into the county. This claim is evident by the famous PSA we hear when people say "support your local businesses" or "keep money in the community." If we had industry, you would never have to say either of those things.

You are not ready to beautify the town. You first need industry. Get some money first, and then beautify the town when you have the funds to keep up with it. A warehouse business doesn’t have to stay in the city forever. Just long enough to create a bigger factory and more jobs. Of course, you, Oil City, have always been the type to focus on beauty while overlooking the ugly that is right in front of you….

Hopefully we can cover this up with bridge lights

It’s not just the city either. These buildings within a few miles of Oil City sat for years before being occupied in recent years....

These ones have sat vacant as well. There's so many, some struggle to stand out in this collage!

Some buildings have been destroyed. Can someone explain why they knocked down this building but left the staircase?

Either the bottom fell off, or the guy they were intended for has really long calves.

You can get mad at some guy for buying a bunch of decaying buildings. But lets stop pretending our city had any original ideas in mind. Every time someone talks about a new business opening up, it always winds up being another restaurant. You think it's creating jobs? Yeah, minimum wage. Yay! More high turnovers!

Don't get me wrong. I love some of the new businesses that have come up in the last several years. I love the business owners I have met. The Oil City Exchange has an owner I can tell is uneasy about my humor, but he is incredibly welcoming every time I come in.

The owners of Cork N Screw Wines have a sense of humor much like the Venango Republic. They have a seasonal drink that remains the same all four seasons. It also comes with a free duck. These people are awesome!

Billy's has a great venue for concerts and family outings.

Also, I want to mention that every time there is a community event, your current mayor is there whether it sucks or not. That speaks volumes to his passion for the town and desire to see it become successful. I say that as one who does not share his party affiliation.

I'm not stereotyping everyone in town. There are people who share these frustrations. Voicing them is not a hindrance to the success for Oil City. Silencing it, however, is exactly what keeps us from progressing. You have great businesses that are forced to stay closed for the first half of the week. Wouldn't you love to have them open all seven days?

The Exchange has a burger to die for. I might want to stop in on a Monday. The problem is, they currently can't justify being opened that day because the demand isn't there. Did you not get the memo? Much of the north side is on welfare....

You have big visions, Oil City. You are about to construct a hotel with an outlook over the river and bandstand park. These aren't bad things. The problem is, you need more. It's not enough for people to know that oil once existed here.

Yeah, you can brag about the history. Up on the hill, you have a lot of history mentioned on a board outside of town. Based on the lack of footprints, I doubt many people read this, though....

Yeah, Charlie Chaplin started his career here. You can brag about that. But how do you brag about the fact that he left and never came back after becoming successful?

You can't depend on the past to draw people back. You need to eventually embrace modernism. Oil City has neglected that for years. The New Jersey guy's negligence is just someone to pass the blame onto. Not to say he isn't responsible for keeping up with those buildings. But we can stop pretending we had vision before and after he came.

In 2020, one of our county commissioners had the gall to stand in front of people on Light Up Night and declare, "people are coming back..." The numbers don't lie....

Yup, when you exclude everyone who is leaving, some people might have come back. Who knows?

Stop the denial! Start getting original! We need more than small-town business to draw people back. As great as you want to paint this city out to be just because it used to be, sweeping our problems under the rug doesn't make you more of a positive person. It makes you a liar.

Last year, I was blocked from the Venango Happenings page for sharing an article about how our most common attempts at revitalizing the area come in the form of craft stores. You can thank that stubbornness for the lack of progress we see. We try to be so positive, we can't even take a joke pointing out ironies that are holding us back. They're right, you know... I should have just posted the statue of the middle finger. That would have been way less offensive....

Get real about the challenge you're facing, Venango. You're right. Complaining fixes nothing. Denying reality doesn't either.

I was an aspiring comedian who moved here from Lancaster. I spent seven years complaining, lost a marriage and significant time with my children. You know what made the difference? When I stopped complaining about what was holding me back and asked myself what I could be doing.

I might not be able to go to night clubs anymore, but I can still write comedy. The Venango Republic became that outlet. It's true that there are negative Nancy's doing nothing to change this region. There's also overly positive people who can't take reality without taking offense. I wish we had a middle-ground mindset that said, "this is reality and I can take hearing the facts. I can also joke about them while making the most of what I have."

That's what I did with the Venango Republic, and that's what each person passionate to make a change should be doing. Get creative, be real, take criticism, and take action. Maybe progress will come in time. Or maybe we will have to become content with being a welfare town.