Switzer Licorice Building - 612 North First Street

ecoabsence · PostMay 13, 2007#1262007-05-13T19:14+00:00

^

Yes, the corner building is going to remain -- thankfully. While originally three stories, it retains its historic appearance nicely. The date is likely late 1850s, with an 1870s era addition behind it.

marmar · PostMay 14, 2007#1272007-05-14T08:28+00:00

Thanks for posting the great pics. So sad it couldn't be saved, but glad the other buildings will. I was admiring those arches as well.

stlgasm · PostMay 14, 2007#1282007-05-14T16:35+00:00

I just returned from a 2-week jaunt in Europe, and it's common practice there to save the facades at all costs to maintain the complete streetwall. It's cool to see completely modern buildings with centuries-old facades. This type of construction seems so rare here in the US, unfortunately. American cities could surely learn a lot from their European counterparts, not only in terms of historic preservation, but also in conserving resources.

I will post pictures of several examples when I get a chance.

tge-atw · PostMay 14, 2007#1292007-05-14T17:04+00:00

Not just Europe, but I have seen that in many eastern cities, particularly Washington DC. Not an option that I think should be used when a building is stable, but when structurally un-sound, maintaining the facade while demolishing the rest can ensure continuity of the street-wall and integrity of historic/aesthetic context (or at least the appearance of context). Probably would have been a good compromise for the Switzer, but the real problem was that they couldn't get their tax credits.

steve · PostMay 14, 2007#1302007-05-14T17:11+00:00

STLgasm wrote:I just returned from a 2-week jaunt in Europe, and it's common practice there to save the facades at all costs to maintain the complete streetwall.

I might be wrong, but I'd bet that European governments heavily regulate their historic architecture.

Alex Ihnen · PostMay 14, 2007#1312007-05-14T17:32+00:00

^ You're not - they do. There are a few places in the US where this has been done as well. The one I'm most familiar with is Monument Circle Indianapolis. The facades of buildings curve along with the circle - a couple years ago a facade was saved while the building was demoed and an entirely new building was built in its place. Great result.

arch city · PostMay 14, 2007#1322007-05-14T18:32+00:00

ecoabsence wrote:The owners of the Switzer plan to save the cast iron front, much of the limestone on the front elevation and the three attached buildings immediately to its north.

That's good to hear.

southslider · PostMay 14, 2007#1332007-05-14T19:53+00:00

This site could see new built behind old, just the old will only stretch the lower floors along North First Street. According to eco, the ground floor is being saved, or the first-floo, cast iron front.

My question then is whether the cast iron front will be salvaged and used elsewhere ala City Museum or will it actually be incorporated on-site as part of a new development?

rustedhinge · PostMay 15, 2007#1342007-05-15T03:27+00:00

matguy70 wrote:The question is... what will replace this pretty large building ?

I would like to see a similar "historic looking" brick structure replaced here - maybe still condos and named "Switzer"

Just my opinion but I don't think we should attempt to recreate the past. No matter how hard we try to make replicas we mostly get shitpie.

For that reason, we should lean towards a new architecture, that perhaps respects the surrounding buildings.

I'm sick of new buildings that incorporate brick all the time!!! sick sick sick of it.

threeonefour · PostMay 15, 2007#1352007-05-15T04:24+00:00

Grover wrote:^ You're not - they do. There are a few places in the US where this has been done as well. The one I'm most familiar with is Monument Circle Indianapolis. The facades of buildings curve along with the circle - a couple years ago a facade was saved while the building was demoed and an entirely new building was built in its place. Great result.

And that's not the only time this was done in Indianapolis. When Circle Centre was built in the early 1990s, the facades of the storefronts along a two-block stretch were preserved, giving Circle Centre some street-level activity and far better aesthetics than the average mall. Of course, the same developer was responsible for St. Louis Centre a decade earlier, so I guess someone learned from past mistake(s)...

Preserving historic facades for new developments should be encouraged. However, we're not living in the kind of town that lets a good idea get in the way of demolition permits and wrecking balls.

debaliviere · PostMay 25, 2007#1362007-05-25T15:24+00:00

I haven't been able to find it online, but there's an article in the print edition of the P-D this morning stating that many of the cast iron pillars were damaged during the demolition process. It does not sound encouraging, but the developer says that he's committed to integrating the cast iron into the new development.

PostMay 25, 2007#1372007-05-25T18:41+00:00

Found it:

Historic columns collapsed in Switzer demolition

By Paul Hampel

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

05/25/2007

The July windstorm that battered the historic Switzer Candy Co. building killed plans to renovate the landmark on Laclede's Landing.

The storm knocked chunks of the south wall — the side with the big Switzer logo — onto the deck of the neighboring Eads Bridge. And it further weakened an interior left exposed to the elements after the licorice company vacated the property in 1978.

The developer and city officials agreed: The building was a safety hazard and would have to be demolished, save for six architectural jewels — fluted cast-iron columns on the front.

The columns, renowned among preservationists as top examples of 19th-century cast-iron construction, had survived for 133 years. Advertisement

Until Wednesday.

During demolition that afternoon, workers at the site said, interior floors heaved forward and shattered a number of the columns.

The developer, Richard W. Darragh with Clarinet LLC, said Thursday that the columns collapsed despite every effort to save them.

Link

threeonefour · PostMay 27, 2007#1382007-05-27T03:30+00:00

Maybe I'm too cynical for my own good, but it sounds like the developer didn't try that hard to save the columns, especially since he didn't heed (or even accept) the professional advice that others offered. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any significant action happening with this property anytime soon.

BTW, for those interested in this sort of stuff, I just thought of another example of a (massive) historic facade that was preserved. On San Francisco's Union Square, the former Emporium department store's front elevation and the intricate glass dome over the atrium were preserved, and a new building was built (to modern seismic standards, of course) that houses an expansion of Westfield San Francisco Centre and Bloomingdale's.

jcity · PostMay 27, 2007#1392007-05-27T22:30+00:00

sadly, this is typical in st louis.

Oh, yeah, we tried to save that facade. We considered it for one minute at least...

Alex Ihnen · PostMay 27, 2007#1402007-05-27T22:57+00:00

Quite possibly - but it's also difficult and sometimes expensive to save components of a building. The columns are very cool and somewhat rare, but no one's going to invest $20K to save them when they could purchase from a salvage shop for less. I think that in general there's a good market for such architectural items and efforts equal to the value of the items will be made. Now if they just weren't saved because of negligence . . .

wheelscomp · PostMay 28, 2007#1412007-05-28T22:34+00:00

Why couldnt they remove the cast iron facade before they took the wrecking ball to the building? Were they structural?

framer · PostMay 29, 2007#1422007-05-29T04:15+00:00

I believe the article said that yes, the columns were structural.

ecoabsence · PostMay 29, 2007#1432007-05-29T15:12+00:00

Most cast iron columns are load-bearing and cannot be removed until all weight above is gone.

However, the columns can be braced to avoid being pushed around during wrecking. In this case, from what I understand, the crane operator pushed a lot of debris down into the building behind the columns and the debris pushed the columns out.

The Switzer's iron front was one of the widest storefront-style fronts in the city, and certainly one of the most elegant surviving examples.

wheelscomp · PostMay 30, 2007#1442007-05-30T05:59+00:00

I only red DeB's cut and past. I thought it was the whole article. All apologies.

magnatron · PostJul 11, 2007#1452007-07-11T17:34+00:00

SO now that the Switzer site resembles that of the BPV except without the lake, what next? I was sort of hoping for some surface parking....

citywatcher · PostJul 17, 2007#1462007-07-17T01:12+00:00

here are some pics shortly after the front caved out

stlmike · PostJul 17, 2007#1472007-07-17T02:50+00:00

jlblues · PostJul 19, 2007#1482007-07-19T04:14+00:00

Grover wrote:Quite possibly - but it's also difficult and sometimes expensive to save components of a building. The columns are very cool and somewhat rare, but no one's going to invest $20K to save them when they could purchase from a salvage shop for less. I think that in general there's a good market for such architectural items and efforts equal to the value of the items will be made. Now if they just weren't saved because of negligence . . .

I would bet a significant amount of money that just one of those columns would fetch well over $20k. I have seen one-story wooden Victorian columns, that are much easier to replicate, go for more.

You are naive if you buy any of the BS about the developers not being able to save the columns, or the building for that matter. Would it have been expensive for them? Sure, but I thought we had gotten past the point where we tear down historic buildings just because it is less expensive to build a new building in its place. I am surprised there isn't more outrage about this. IMHO, this building was just as valuable as the Century, if not more so.

wheelscomp · PostJul 19, 2007#1492007-07-19T06:14+00:00

It was a year ago tomorrow that the building partially collapsed.

Edit: Its a year ago today since its 1:14 am

matt · PostJul 19, 2007#1502007-07-19T15:08+00:00

Exactly, JlBlues.

Switzer Licorice Building - 612 North First Street

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