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If you've driven through Goodyear Heights in the last twelve months, you've probably noticed it.
A 112-year-old water reservoir at Brittain and Newton — torn down. The old Goodyear Middle School on Goodyear Boulevard — gone, demolished in early December 2025 to clear the parcel for an IRG redevelopment called “The Heights.” A boarded-up CVS at the Six Points intersection — about to become Akron's first new development built under the city's new form-based zoning code, with a small public park bolted onto a gas station.
We buy houses across Summit County, and Goodyear Heights is a neighborhood we know well. For years it's been one of those places where property values stayed quiet while the rest of Akron moved around it — undervalued, underappreciated, and largely overlooked by anyone who didn't grow up there. That's starting to change. Not loudly. Not in a way that makes the front page of the Beacon Journal. But if you own a home here, it's worth understanding why.
Five things happening at the same time
- The Heights development. IRG — the same Industrial Realty Group that's been redeveloping the old Goodyear corporate campus on East Market for the past decade — is now expanding the project. The Goodyear Middle School came down in December 2025 to clear the parcel. Public filings show “The Heights” is being structured as a mixed-use development with a 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit component, meaning a real chunk of new housing is coming. The East End loft conversions in the same corridor are already done.
- The Reservoir Park pool. In May 2024, Akron City Council allocated $10 million to renovate and expand the public pool at Reservoir Park. The new design includes a 15-foot slide and 25-meter lap lanes. As of early 2026, the city hasn't released a start date, but the money is in place.
- The reservoir replacement. The 112-year-old reservoir at Brittain and Newton that holds 20 million gallons of Akron's drinking water was fully demolished in early 2026. The replacement will be smaller, more efficient, and architecturally designed to match the Seiberling Community Learning Center across the street.
- The Circle K at Six Points. The vacant CVS lot at 786 Brittain Road is being redeveloped as Akron's first new development under the city's new form-based zoning code — and the corner facing the intersection is being turned into a small public park instead of parking. The city has said Goodyear Heights and Sherbondy Hill are next on the list for full form-based code rezonings.
- The retail spine on Goodyear Boulevard. The Linda Theatre has been showing first-run movies since 1948 and is still operating under longtime resident David Schweyer, who also opened Cafe Rewind in the former post office at 1763 Goodyear Boulevard. A new honky-tonk-style bar has been announced for the corridor.
None of those, individually, makes a neighborhood. Five of them happening at the same time is how neighborhoods change.
The history matters more than you'd think
Goodyear Heights is the most historically significant neighborhood in Akron, and that's not the kind of charm-line you put in a real estate flyer — it's documented in architectural literature.
In 1912, Frank Seiberling, the co-founder of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, bought several hundred acres of farmland east of downtown and hired Warren Manning — the same landscape architect who designed Stan Hywet — to lay out a planned community for his factory workers. The result was one of the earliest and best American examples of the Anglo-American Garden Suburb, a movement that emphasized integrating quality housing, winding streets, and public greenspace into a single coherent design.
Architectural Forum profiled the neighborhood in 1918. Robert A.M. Stern, one of America's most recognized residential architects, gave Goodyear Heights its own discussion in his book Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City. The original allotment is officially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
In plain English: the housing stock in the historic district — the English cottages, Dutch Colonials, bungalows, and Tudors built between 1912 and the early 1920s — was not slapped-up worker housing. Pre-approved plans, mature trees, a “village square” layout, the works. Surrounding allotments (Newton Heights, Hazelwood Heights, Eastland, Preston Heights, and others) filled in around the historic core with Cape Cods, ranches, and bungalows mostly built after WWII.
That's the housing stock you're either selling or sitting on today.
What this means if you own a house here
The median home value in Goodyear Heights was around $85,000 in 2021 — well under half the Ohio median. Population is roughly 15,000 to 21,000 across the broader neighborhood, depending on how you draw the lines, and about 56% of homes are owner-occupied. The ZIP is 44305.
Three observations from buying houses here:
The historic-district homes are dramatically undervalued relative to their architectural quality. We've walked into 1914 English cottages with original built-ins, leaded glass, and oak floors selling for under $90,000 because the kitchen hasn't been touched since the Carter administration. That gap between build quality and sale price is the widest of any Akron neighborhood.
The post-WWII ranches and Cape Cods east of Eastwood Avenue and into Eastland are where most of the actual transaction volume is. Solid bones, often inherited, often needing a roof and mechanicals. These are the houses we typically buy.
Owners who hold past the next 24 months are likely to see the strongest appreciation in a generation. The Heights development alone, backed by an IRG-scale operator, is going to lift rents and property values across the broader 44305. Add the pool, the reservoir, the rezoning, and the Goodyear Boulevard retail revival — that's a lot of dollars landing in one ZIP code at once.
If you're a homeowner here, that's not a reason to panic-sell. It's a reason to understand exactly what your house is worth right now, what it could be worth after a renovation, and what your options actually are.
If you're thinking about selling in Goodyear Heights
We're a small, local team that buys houses in cash across Summit County — Goodyear Heights, Firestone Park, Kenmore, Ellet, all the older neighborhoods that the rubber industry built. We don't list properties, we don't charge commissions, and we don't ask you to clean the place out or fix anything before we look at it.
If you want a confidential cash offer on a house in Goodyear Heights, our Goodyear Heights cash buyer page has the details, or you can call or text us at (330) 661-9885. We respond within one business day.
You can also read our piece on why Kenmore is making a comeback — same dynamic, different rubber-boom neighborhood, a few years further along.
