Summa Health System Pays $6.1M for Former Roadway Express HQ

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Summa Health System, Summit County’s largest employer, recently purchased the former Roadway Express Inc. corporate headquarters building just off Route 8 in north Akron. It will use the vacant office building as a new administrative center. Over time, Summa plans to relocate as many as 800 workers there and open up space for patients at its Akron City Hospital campus.

The 273,000-square-foot office building is located at 1077 Gorge Blvd. and sits on 14.7 acres of land. It also includes a cafeteria and an 84-seat auditorium. Roadway Express built it in 1962 and spent $14 million to expand it by 180,000 square feet in 1986. It was Roadway’s home for a very long time.

YRC Worldwide Inc. was the seller. It acquired Roadway in 2003. Early this year, YRC announced plans to sell the facility and cut as many as 100 jobs there as part of a cost-cutting campaign. The building has been vacant since employees left at the end of March. Now, Summa will bring new life to the property.

YRC hired Akron’s Pickard Commercial Group to market the property. They partnered with CBRE Group Inc. to broker the deal. According to Summit County property records, the office building has an appraised value of about $8.8 million. Summa paid nearly $6.1 million for it, including office furniture.

Summa will start relocating employees to the the building on Gorge Boulevard in the coming months, most of them from its Akron City Hospital campus. Executives including the health system’s president and CEO will remain on the hospital campus for now.

With this acquisition, Summa will be able to keep its back offices in the city and bring together administrative departments that have been housed in crowded offices or spread out among numerous buildings. The health system  has approximately 11,000 employees and serves more than one million patients a year.

Photo credits: CBRE