I can't believe that such a beautiful and urban friendly building such as this one is just sitting empty. I can imagine people living upstairs, and then being able to come downstairs and getting a cup of coffee from a cafe on the first floor. But to honest, judging from the suburban crap that the local alderman is allowing to be built just across the street, I fear for the safety of this beautiful building. See it here from the air.
That is a very nice looking building.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to develop it, here's what I'd do:
Commercial on the ground floor, like you've got in mind, but with two storefronts used for a garage door headed to ground level parking back behind where the commercial units would extend.
I'd demo the odd floors and carve the thing up into 16-20 two-story lofts with hallways along the internal H and elevators and common areas in the middle section.
It'd be tempted to enclose the cutaways with four or five story greenhouses with hanging gardens, which would be pretty boss.
Zooming around on Live, the suburban-esque properties around there are rather revolting. What's the big building at Vandeventer and Lindell now, condominiums?
I used to drive by here almost daily, and a few years ago this building actually started undergoing a complete rehab. They cleaned the building out and started putting in new windows, but unfortunately work suddenly stopped. Don't know who was doing the rehab.
ReplyDeleteLiam,
ReplyDeleteKnocking out floors to create lofts has been very successful on Washington Ave; it would be a good idea for a building that doesn't need so many units nowadays.
I think the large building you are referring to at Lindell and Vandeventer is condos.