A look at Wheatena through the years

With demolition of the old Wheatena buildings and clearing of the site in recent months, I thought it’d be a good time to go deep into the archives.

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The white, four-story building at the corner of Elizabeth and West Grand avenues loomed vacant for about 40 years despite a variety of plans over the last decade and a half. The plan that finally received approval and now is moving forward is a 487-unit development called The Brownstones, by Capodagli Property Company. Over the past year or so, the company has cleared much of the 7-acre site and environmental remediation is part of the project.

Here’s a timeline of milestones over the last few decades (I’ve linked to what I can, which is mostly previous posts):

A Google search yielded a flickr account that features some pretty cool photos from the Wheatena site taken in 2013 that are worth checking out. There’s also a fun piece from Atlas Obscura from earlier this year that includes some remarks from city historian Alex Shipley.

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3 thoughts on “A look at Wheatena through the years”

  1. Interesting to see these pix. And thanks for the link to the Steven Bley flickr page. He’s very talented.

  2. Am I crazy or did there use to be a huge box of Wheatena on the roadside across from the prison. Perhaps it was an elevated box of Cream of Wheat or Farina. Of course, this was back in the 1960s

    1. The answer to you 2nd question is that Wheatena encased the water tank on their tower with a square box painted to look like the Wheatena package.
      I am unable to answer your 1st question.

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