Sometimes just the suggestion of a change can alter a community’s perception of itself.

It rankled some old-timers two years ago when Butler’s Pullman Park changed its name to Kelly Automotive Park. Never mind that the namesake Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company pulled out of Butler 32 years earlier, taking with it the municipal lifeblood of industrial jobs and prosperity.

Now comes the suggestion of another change: an Ohio developer wants to renovate the former Pullman Standard executive headquarters and convert it into senior housing. The stately, century-old stone structure has been vacant along Hansen Avenue in Butler’s Lyndora neighborhood since 1982.

The renovation was proposed Thursday night during a meeting of Butler city council. The Woda Group of Westerville, Ohio, hopes to buy and renovate the four-story, 48,000 square foot building at 651 Hansen Ave.

David Cooper, principal of the firm, said Woda hopes to take advantage of tax breaks for preserving a registered historical building.

A fresh anticipation could be heard in the comments of several council members.

“I’m thrilled that it looks like there could be a tenant in the building,” said Bill May. “It’s a beautiful structure. It would be a big plus to that area of town.”

There’s another potential big plus for the Lyndora neighborhood and for the adjoining Island neighborhood that’s separated from it by little more than a small creek, Sullivan Run.

Again, there’s a matter of self-perception. The Island neighborhood is so named, and so regarded, because it’s bordered by Sullivan Run and Connoquenessing Creek.

Over the past three decades, several service and government agencies, along with the Pullman Square shopping plaza and professional buildings, have located on the grounds of the former Pullman-Standard rail car works. They include the federal Social Security office, the county assistance and housing authority offices and Butler Area Rapid Transit.

However, two elements are missing.

First, the shortest current passage from downtown to Lyndora is Pillow Street, along the neighborhood’s north edge. An additional, more convenient access through this growing complex of businesses and services is needed. It would extend one street from the Island into Lyndora by way of a bridge over Sullivan Run. One possible connection could extend Negley Avenue west to Bantam Avenue and Hollywood Drive.

Second, the neighborhood once had a grocery market, but it closed. The city and other community groups should consider what it would take to entice a supermarket back to the Pullman Square plaza. The promise of several dozen senior tenants would be a step in the right direction.

Long-term visionaries can see the potential for turning this former industrial property into an attractive patchwork of park trails, landscaped streets, public service and professional office buildings, a shopping center and a landmark baseball park.

Thirty three years after Pullman-Standard left, we all realize this property will never be what it once was.

But it doesn’t take much imagination to see what it might become — if we’re willing to see it from a fresh perspective.