Can preservationists learn to love skyscrapers? Sure. Because it’s not the height, the location or how old a build is that matters — it’s quality and how the building will serve people. In this article in the New York Times, “Sure, Build it in My Backyard,” the website of Nikolai Fedak is highlighted. The name…
Category: Commercial Buildings
This is why you get lost in Columbia, Missouri
Bet you didn’t know that Chapel Hill Road used to be West Boulevard South. Which now makes sense of the fact that the rest of West Boulevard often has addresses such as 121 West Boulevard North. This street name tidbit came out at the April 1, 2014 event honoring the 2014 Most Notable Properties named…
Find your connections to historic Columbia
Turns out, my best friend is connected to the historic 1910 Heibel-March Building. And she not from here, she’s German and didn’t even move to Columbia from Chicago until the 1970s. Not bad for a building that had been vacant for 16 years and has only recently been revitalized as the office space for Grove…
Could the student-housing boom help this motor inn?
This Columbia Missourian article outlines beautifully the history of the Arrow Head Motel, what Deb Sheals says in the story is one of the last remaining old tourist camps. The present owner, Mohammad Eldeib, no longer rent rooms there, instead using the location to rent trucks and trailers. But in the article, he notes he’d…
A new use for historic buildings
Historic buildings need to be put to work to save them, and sometimes that means finding a new use for the building. For example, historic homes with too much space for today’s smaller families are sometimes reused as bed and breakfasts — or an old historic building could be renovated to become housing for artists….
Will the historic Hall Theatre end up vacant for 10 years?
The restaurant Panera Bread has occupied the majority of the historic Hall Theatre since 2005, and will be closing that location at the end of this year. This could be bad news for Ninth Street and the Hall Theatre. The building, the article notes, is owned by Stan Kroenke of The Kroenke Group. This is the…
Take a historic tour of Columbia’s highlights
There’s no time limit on taking this historic tour. Here’s a link to a PowerPoint presentation that basically offers a tour of Columbia’s historic highlights. This presentation was presented by Deb Sheals, a historic preservation consultant, in May 2011 at a public meeting of the Columbia Historic Preservation Commission. I love taking these kinds of…
Tentative Agreement to Save the Niedermeyer
This news item from KOMU states that the Niedermeyer Apartments may be saved from demolition by an agreement with a private buyer. The news report is dated March 12, 2013, 12:30 p.m. The report outlines the history of the Niedermeyer Apartments on Cherry Street: 1837 – Built by Gen. Richard and Ann Hawkins Gentry. Home…
2013 Most Notable Properties Highlights
In case you missed it, here are links to coverage of the February 2013 announcement of six historic sites named to the Columbia Most Notable Properties List by the Columbia Historic Preservation Commission. Qualifications for being named to the list include the property being older than 50 years, within Columbia’s city limits and highlights the…
Niedermeyer Preservation Plans
Columbia’s historic homes — literally homes — are in danger. An 1837 building, now functioning as an apartment building, is in the sights of a developer. The plan is to demolish the building, the Niedermeyer Building at Tenth and Cherry streets in downtown Columbia and replace it with a 15-story apartment building. Voices from both…
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