Tyler Scherting gets up before 4 a.m. every morning to make pizza dough at 329 N. Huron St. Each batch ferments for 72 hours, so a pie served on Sunday comes from dough he started on Friday, as he explained to Toledo City Paper.
He's working on a three-day schedule at an address where restaurants haven't lasted. A short walk away, the Spitzer and Nicholas buildings at Four Corners are expected to hold about 400 apartments someday. Today they hold none. Downtown's newest places are opening anyway, and they're planning around the crowds downtown already gets. One new ice cream counter adds early-week hours on Mud Hens and Walleye home-game days, and Scherting points to the Huntington Center and Fifth Third Field. The apartment towers are still on paper.
Where the Four Corners Project Stands This Fall
The Lucas County Land Bank owns the Spitzer and Nicholas buildings. Its Four Corners project page describes a plan to convert more than 500,000 square feet of historic office space into about 400 homes with "an activated first-floor commercial corridor." The total cost is estimated at $190 million. The page says almost $15 million is being invested between 2022 and 2026, and that the work done so far has covered environmental cleanup, interior demolition, and stabilizing the roofs, exterior masonry and historic windows.
The proposed developer is The RKP Group. Its downtown projects include Standart Lofts, The Berdan, Fort Industry Square and The Overmyer, and it also owns the Nasby Building at the same intersection. In September 2025, the Land Bank board approved a pre-development agreement giving RKP 12 months of exclusive rights, provided it met certain conditions. One of those conditions is a plan for commercial tenants. Any final agreement still has to go back to the board for approval. The three buildings will be redeveloped in stages, starting with the Spitzer.
The latest concrete step came on Sept. 14, 2026. The Blade reported a $2 million state grant for new water and sewer lines at the Spitzer, which is planned for 180 to 200 workforce housing units. According to the city, the Spitzer project costs $92 million and has about $18.3 million in committed public funding.
| Four Corners piece | Status as of mid-September 2026 |
|---|---|
| Spitzer Building | Up first; $2M grant for water and sewer lines; 180 to 200 units planned |
| Nicholas Building | Follows the Spitzer in the staged plan |
| Nasby Building | Owned by RKP; part of the later stages |
| Ground-floor shops and restaurants | A commercial tenant plan is one of RKP's conditions |
So the apartments are a plan with funding behind it and no move-in date. The restaurants around them are open now.
An Address on Its Eighth Restaurant
Dough & Co PizzAria is the eighth restaurant at 329 N. Huron St. in about 25 years. WTOL 11 traced the earlier tenants in order:
- Restaurant Diva, which closed in 2008
- Ole Taco & Tequila
- The 329, a restaurant and nightlife concept
- Martini & Nuzzi's, which opened downtown in 2015
- Cilantro's
- Poco Piatti, from 2019 until it moved to Glass City Metropark as The Garden by Poco Piatti
- Hamburger Mary's, which closed earlier this year
WTOL's story says no single explanation covers the turnover. Some of those restaurants opened in the uncertain years after the Great Recession, and others ran into changes in office foot traffic and entertainment habits downtown. Hamburger Mary's owners told the station that the long Four Corners construction work next door cut into their customer traffic during critical months, because it limited access and visibility while it was underway.
Scherting is betting the other way. In June, he and his father bought the building for $510,000 instead of leasing it. Here's how he described the problem to WTOL:
"One of the problems about this restaurant prior wasn't the concepts themselves. It was kind of the downtown atmosphere. You have to invest in a place like this downtown with the expectation that it's going to grow into what you know it's going to grow into."
He named two things to WTOL: the future apartments, and the Huntington Center and Fifth Third Field crowds that come downtown all year. Only the second exists yet.
What to Order on Huron Street
Dough & Co was open by early September. Three longtime Toledo restaurant people run it. Scherting spent more than 20 years in restaurant management, at places including Cooper's Hawk and Old Bag of Nails, before opening his own. Managing partner Shane Bell runs the pizza oven. Managing partner Logan Thieroff runs the bar and credits Toledo Spirits, where he learned to make cocktails, with shaping his drink list.
Toledo City Paper's review singled out three things:
- The pizza. The 72-hour dough is made with flour imported from Italy.
- The Bolognese. Fettuccine with a sauce of several ground meats, onion and carrot, topped with ricotta and shaved parmesan.
- The Kodachrome. A rye whiskey cocktail with Angostura bitters, orange liqueur, lime and orgeat. The menu says "Paul Simon would approve."
As of September, hours were 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The number is 419-862-7242. On a Huntington Center night, the extra hour on weekends matters.
On St. Clair, the Toledo Zoo Is Scooping Ice Cream
Over on St. Clair, one of the new openings shares a building with a pharmacy. Doc Martin's Remedy Shoppe and Apothecary, at 12 N. St. Clair St., opened after a grand-opening event on Friday, May 22. WTOL reported that it combines a full-service pharmacy, medical, dental and behavioral health services, and an ice cream parlor. The Neighborhood Health Association owns the building.
The parlor is now called the Watering Hole Creamery, and the Toledo Zoo's food service, concessions and catering department runs it. The Blade reported that the zoo was picked from several organizations that bid to operate it. Holly Casey, the zoo's vice president of food service and merchandise, told The Blade the shop is "a new way to apply that expertise beyond the zoo's gates."
The menu has hard-serve ice cream, shakes, malts, floats and sundaes, plus wraps and salads if you want something besides dessert. The zoo plans to bring in hot chocolate and other seasonal items for winter.
The schedule shows the pattern most clearly. As of September, regular hours were noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. It also opens on Mondays and Tuesdays when the Mud Hens or the Walleye have a home game. So its early-week hours follow the home-game schedule.
Planning a Night Around the Four Corners Blocks
Here's how the new stops line up for a late-October evening downtown, based on the most recent published hours.
| Stop | Address | What it is | Latest reported status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dough & Co PizzAria | 329 N. Huron St. | 72-hour-dough pizza, pasta, craft cocktails | Open; Sun–Thu 11–9, Fri–Sat 11–10 as of September |
| Watering Hole Creamery | 12 N. St. Clair St. | Zoo-run ice cream counter inside Doc Martin's | Open; Wed–Sun, plus Mon–Tue on home-game days |
| Flatrock Barrel House | 116 10th St. | Small-batch bourbon, mead, cocktails, food | Preparing to open as of Oct. 1 |
A simple order works well: pizza on Huron before puck drop, then ice cream on St. Clair. On a Monday or Tuesday, that only works on a home-game day, because those are the only early-week days the creamery opens.
Flatrock Barrel House is the next one to watch. Toledo City Paper's October roundup listed it as preparing to open in the back of the historic Davis Building, with Flatrock Distilling as the owner. Flatrock's own site describes the downtown location as offering small-batch bourbon, mead, cocktails and food, with the entrance at the rear of the Davis Building. No opening date has been announced, so check before you go.
North on Erie, The Station Sports Bar from Hannon's Block owner Mike Stancati has taken over the former Alleyway space at 28 N. Erie St. The Blade covered its opening. It serves Detroit- and tavern-style pizzas, has a scratch kitchen, and has a patio and beer garden.
What the Spitzer Work Means for These Blocks
The Four Corners plan adds a new question for these businesses. The grant money pays for new water and sewer lines at the Spitzer. The city expects construction to support about 800 jobs. Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz told The Blade the grant "kickstarts the full revitalization" of the Four Corners District. The most recent local example of what that kind of work does to nearby storefronts is the one Hamburger Mary's owners described at 329 N. Huron.
Dough & Co, the Watering Hole Creamery and, once it opens, Flatrock Barrel House will all be operating on the blocks around the Spitzer while that work goes on. No apartment move-in date has been announced.
If you're tracking how Four Corners will change what it's like to live, own or invest near downtown, I follow these projects closely and I'm happy to walk through what's actually funded and what's still a plan. Reach out to Justin Spann and let's connect.
