Take a walk up, down and around the aging Bridgestone Firestone Technical Center at 1200 Firestone Parkway and it's no surprise why the 600 employees will be getting a much more modern workplace in the next several years, either in Akron or Tennessee.

Twenty percent of the mammoth 97-year-old building, formerly Firestone Plant 1 off South Main Street, is dark and vacant. Another 15 percent is used for storage.

Much of the flooring and wall coverings were de rigueur in the 1970s. Maybe the '80s.

The thick floors, walls and support pillars, designed to hold tons and tons of tire-making equipment, make contemporary wireless computer transmissions difficult at best.

And despite ongoing maintenance and upkeep, it leaks in places.

That's not exactly an environment conducive to the center's mission: Designing, engineering and testing tires in the 21st century for the company's crucial North America and South America markets.

''It was built originally as a tire factory,'' said Bob Handlos, vice president, materials and race-tire technology. ''As you can imagine, with that much open space, we spread out.''

The five-story structure has been modified over the decades, including adding a floor for corporate offices, as Firestone Rubber & Tire Co. evolved before being bought out by Bridgestone Corp. of Japan in 1988. That formed what is now the world's largest tire company.

Handlos is leading a team of Akron employees who later this year will recommend to higher-ups in Nashville, Tenn., and Tokyo that the company eiPlease see May, A9

ther renovate the building to state-of-the-art, put up a new, world-class structure elsewhere in Akron, or in three years move the technical center to a new site in the Nashville area, near the North American headquarters. The process started about two years ago, well before Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s corporate headquarters project went public and received an infusion of public funding to keep the tire maker in Akron.

City, county and state officials want Bridgestone Firestone and its technical center engineers, scientists, designers and others to stay put. Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, Summit County Executive Russ Pry and other government officials are preparing their own incentive package to try to keep the technical center in Akron.

'What we need'

''The mayor has been here. Russ Pry has been here,'' Handlos said. ''They understand. They've been very proactive. They understand what type of things are here and what we need as a company. Obviously, one of the options here could be to fix this up and close down those areas that aren't used.''

The technical center's main function is to develop the company's tires for the North American market, Handlos said.

''We develop that technology here,'' he said. ''We deal with the other (Bridgestone) global technology centers and meet with them on a regular basis. . . . We also do race-tire manufacturing. We have several corporate functions that still exist in the building.''

All told, Bridgestone Firestone has about 1,000 employees in Akron, including a research and development site, computer technology building, tire-testing complex and race-tire manufacturing. While that number is a far cry from Firestone's Akron peak employment, when it was an independent company, it remains a sizable presence.

As a result, there's more than just 600 jobs at risk if the company decides its technical center belongs in Tennessee.

In the two decades since it bought one of Akron's iconic tire brands, Bridgestone Firestone has worked to be a good corporate citizen as well in the Akron area, Handlos said.

''We do a lot in the community,'' Handlos said. That includes participating significantly in local charities, he added.

The company is the primary funder for a program that helps at-risk middle school pupils in Akron get good grades through high school, and then pays for full-ride scholarships for the students to the University of Akron. In most cases, the students are the first ones in their family to go to college, Handlos said.

''We also contribute over $200,000 annually'' to local charities, he said.

The center's work

One of the technical center's functions is to find applications for the discoveries and work that come out of Bridgestone Firestone's nearby research and development center, he said.

There's a large amount of technology that goes into tires, said Dan Saurer, division vice president, consumer tire development. Tire design and engineering largely start with computer modeling, followed by the making of physical models and lots of testing, he said.

The Akron technical center, for example, is where the company develops tires that go on new cars and light trucks, Saurer said.

''We're years out. We're working right now on 2010 models, in some cases 2011,'' he said.

The technical center is full of Firestone history, and not just in the memorabilia displayed in the ground-floor lobby and elsewhere.

Much of the third floor is largely unchanged from when tires were last made in the building, Handlos said.

''This is what a tire factory looked like 50 years ago,'' he said. ''Actually, up through the first three floors was the tire factory. The fourth floor was corporate at that time. And as they expanded, they built a fifth floor. The fourth and fifth floors became corporate. But the first three floors remained factory until the '70s.''

The third floor is used now primarily for storage, Handlos said. ''We've done a lot of cleanup over the years, as you might imagine.''

The last couple of years, the company inventoried the stored factory material to decide what to keep and what to get rid of, he said. ''If you'd come through here a year and a half ago, it would be full of junk.''

They just wanted to get rid of the stuff, Handlos said. ''It was a mess. Quite frankly, the cost of cleaning it up was covered by the scrap metal cost. Scrap metal (value) is very high right now. I've got good maintenance guys. They know these things. They know the value of this stuff.''

Workers found keepsakes from the bygone tire-making era that the company has kept, Handlos said.

Maintenance costs

The cleanup left behind a voluminous area that remains costly to maintain, Handlos said. The largely deserted space needs to be heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, and the fire code requires that sprinkler systems be kept at the ready, he said.

''You can't shut off the power. You can't shut off the heat, because then the pipes would freeze,'' Handlos said.

One of the center's prominent features is the wide, lengthy corridors on all five floors. In the winter, employees walk up and around the building for exercise, Handlos said.

The unused space comes in handy when parts of the technical center need to grow, Handlos and others said. A chemical laboratory used for rubber testing recently expanded into a third-floor area of vacant offices, Handlos said.

The empty rooms mirror what is on the fourth floor directly above, holding the old Firestone executive offices, Bridgestone Firestone spokesman Dan MacDonald said. ''There's a whole wing that's empty.''

Handlos said the team he leads that is exploring the future of the technical center is in the middle of its process. The team is made up primarily of Akron people and some consultants, he said. The goal is to come up with a recommendation by the end of May, with executives and board members in Nashville and Japan making a final decision before the year ends.

''What are the possibilities? What are the data?'' Handlos asked. ''In the end, it's going to be a business decision, from a financial standpoint and from a qualitative standpoint.''

Recruiting tool

A modern technical center is important to recruit and retain employees in a highly competitive market, Handlos said. That market is getting even more competitive as baby boomers begin to retire and fewer younger people are available to replace them, he said.

It's harder to bring in highly competent engineers and chemists to a building that looks the way the Akron technical center looks now, he said.

''When you're talking a new building, you're talking a 40- or 50-year decision,'' Handlos said. ''I'm not going to be here (all those years), but let's do the right thing. Let's do the right thing for the people who are coming along. . . . For us, this is a decision about the future.''