This Columbus man is restoring Ralston Tower, years after his grandfather lived there

Columbus native Brian Herring has built high-rises all over the country.

In the past five years, he’s traveled throughout the states working on apartment rehabs and flew home to Columbus every other weekend to spend time with his 11-year-old daughter, Izzy.

He didn’t think he would ever be able to return to his hometown to raise Izzy full-time without taking a significant loss of income. Last fall, Herring was working for a construction company in Houston when he received a phone call from Izzy’s mother.

She’d met someone and planned to move to South Carolina taking Izzy with her. Herring would only be able to see his daughter once or twice a year.

His director who was in the office when Herring took the phone call overheard the conversation and encouraged him to return to Columbus to get custody of Izzy.

“Put your notice in,” the director told Herring. “Find you a job back home. It’s time for you to go home.”

Herring reached out to Freeman & Associates about finding a position in Columbus. They told Herring they had the perfect job for him.

With full custody of Izzy, Herring is now the construction superintendent over the crew restoring Ralston Towers, a historic building that made an impact in Herring’s own family history and will soon reopen as affordable housing for elderly and disabled residents in Columbus.

It’s a group Herring cares for immensely because his grandfather, Johnny Davis, previously lived in the building during his elderly years.

The right man for the job

Ralston Tower was project-based HUD Section 8 housing when it was closed early in 2020, a few years after 62-year-old Charles Hart was found dead in his room.

Residents had complained in the weeks leading up to his death about the lack of air conditioning, but extreme heat was only one issue the deteriorating building had.

After the building was closed, the Atlanta-based company Infinity Capital Partner acquired it and began the renovation process. It would prove to be the biggest project the team has ever done, chief investment officer Greg Jones, told the Ledger-Enquirer.

There were problems with pests, malfunctioning elevators and other dangerous living conditions.

“It’s been about five or six superintendents that gave up,” Herring said. “It’s stressful. But the owners are great. Jones gave me free reign to this project. I could do whatever I need to do.”

Herring’s experience working on rehabbing old buildings made him a good fit for this job, he said, but he his family connection to the Ralston Tower was also a factor.

His grandfather lived in the building in the 1990s when Herring was a kid.

“Me and my dad, who was a fireman down at Station 1, used to come to the Ralston and eat breakfast.”

Herring remembers how Davis would always go hang out with the women who came to cook Thanksgiving dinners at the Ralston.

“They thought he had a crush on them,” Herring smirked. “He was just wanting the free meal.”

Shortly after Herring’s grandfather passed, the Ralston went on a downward spiral. But the superintendent works hard to bring the building back into a place where elderly Columbus residents can feel good at calling the building home again.

“It’s going to give them a home later in life,” he said. “It will give them a better way of life to live out the years where they worked so hard to enjoy their retirement.”

Bringing life into an old building

When Herring came into the building, he thought about where to begin.

“How do you bring life into a 109-year-old building,” he asked himself.

Well, the starting point is fresh air, he decided. The ability to control the temperature throughout the building was the biggest issue in the Ralston Tower, he said.

The construction workers installed about 50 fresh air units that filter outside air and send it throughout the corridors. A heat pump works to heat and cool the air as needed, with controls in each apartment allowing residents to find a setting comfortable for them.

Next, he had to find a way to ensure the building was safe in the event of a fire.

“The corridors had fire suppression,” Herring said. “But the rooms didn’t.”

A new system was installed that placed sprinklers in every room with a new fire suppression pump installed in the basement that is “rated like a modern-day fire truck.”

Downstairs on the first floor, the large kitchen area will be available with meals available for residents. Inside the rooms, residents will have microwaves and mini-fridges.

There is a business center with new computers, an activity room that will be filled with games and a comfortable lobby. There are 64 security cameras throughout the public areas of the building and outside, providing another layer of security for residents.

“The residents are going to be protected,” Herring said. “They’re going to have a great way of life.”

A historic building

The Ralston Hotel was finished in 1914 facing the First Baptist Church with 100 rooms on nine floors. It was the tallest building in Columbus at the time according to research by local historian Virginia Causey.

The building underwent expansions in 1919 and 1940 adding 200 more rooms.

In its heyday, the hotel’s ballroom was a venue for formal dinners and dances, downtown power-brokers gathered there for lunch, the Muscogee chapter of the Red Cross met on the first floor to make medical supplies during World War I and famous visitors, including Babe Ruth, stayed at the hotel when passing through Columbus, Causey noted in her research.

The building began deteriorating in the 1970s and became senior citizen housing.

Herring knows the story well. And as the construction superintendent over the renovation of the building, his deep knowledge of the building is evident in his conversation as he walks through the hallways giving a tour.

“This construction is 1914 here,” he says, walking a little further down the hallway. “And this is 1946.”

The rooms are a lot larger in the 1940s, he explains, but the bathroom styles in the two eras aren’t very different. They have black and white color schemes in the tile and accents. This was a color scheme he chose to continue throughout the renovated building.

“It’s historic,” Herring explained. “It fits the era.”

Preserving historic elements of the building is one of the most important priorities, along with making the building safer for residents and visitors.

The age of the building and the state it was in when he began working on it has made things difficult. Some days the team takes one step forward and five steps back, he said.

“It’s not like new construction where you can plan every aspect of the job,” Herring said. “You always have some kind of surprise and dealing with those is very challenging. But at the end of the day, we are accomplishing our goal.”