The old Emery Hardware Building on Main Street was saved from
the wrecking ball by this much, said John Kohler, holding his
fingers about an inch apart.

Kohler bought the building in August and the transformation into
a viable downtown business is nearly complete. He said Friday that
his tenant, Mattress City Sleep Shop Inc., is hoping to have its
furniture store open in that location by Dec. 1.

“I renovated it … I put in a new roof and a new floor where it
had burned,” he said, describing some of the work that’s gone into
saving the building after it was damaged by fire in 2004.

The work on the building went very quickly, mostly due to local
contractors, Kohler said, giving kudos to Troutman Contractors, BTU
Supply and Pure Tech.

“I don’t use anybody that’s not local,” Kohler said.

Original estimates had called for tearing down the rear of the
building that was the most heavily damaged, but Kohler explained it
was less costly to repair it than to demolish it. The area is now
used as a warehouse for the furniture store.

And he laughed about the detractors who said the building
couldn’t be salvaged.

“They also said the library couldn’t be saved,” he said,
smiling, referring to the former location of the Bradford Area
Public Library at the corner of Congress and East Corydon
streets.

“I’m the one who made that into a restaurant,” he said,
explaining he was responsible for the renovations that allowed a
restaurant to open in that space.

Kohler said the furniture store will not be alone in the
building for long. He plans to open a coffee shop, to be run by
Mark and Heather Peace, with wireless Internet availability in what
had been a warehouse at the rear of the property.

“The old warehouse, it was built in 1911,” he said. “That’s all
it’s ever been is a warehouse. It’s going to be the Emery Espresso
Bar.”

He plans to make it similar to a “big city” coffee shop, serving
coffees and pastries from John Williams Pastry Shop.

And he’s planning to incorporate a lot of Bradford’s history
into the shop. He saved the spindles and stair treads from the
large staircase that had been inside the entranceway at the old
hardware store, and will use those pieces in the coffee shop.

“They turned out to be mahogany,” he said. He added that he sent
one of the spindles to a local craftsman to have it sanded down to
see what was underneath, and was pleasantly surprised.

He plans to decorate the coffee shop with a rustic look, leaving
the spindles and treads in their sanded-down states.

“I even have an old gravity elevator in there … it will be sort
of a showpiece,” Kohler said.

The coffee shop will not open until early next year, as he has
just given proposals to two banks regarding his business plan.

And, he said, the old building is on its way to renewed
life.

“My emotional attachment to that building is remembering going
up that staircase and seeing Santa Claus when I was a kid … maybe
four or five,” Kohler said, explaining he remembers Emery Hardware,
and remembers taking classes at University of Pittsburgh at
Bradford when it was in that building, too.

The building had housed Angells Family Entertainment Center from
2001 until the fire in 2004, after which the business closed.