PLAN AN OFFICE BUILDING

Newest Will Supplant One of

the Oldest In Town

Trade Made by State Bank of Ottawa Allows of a Splendid

Improvement in Ottawa's Buildings.

["Ottawa Herald," 29 Mar 1913, page 1, column 2]

When the little frame structure at the northeast corner of the intersection of Third and Main streets is torn down to provide for a modern building for the State Bank of Ottawa, it will mark the passing of another landmark. It was built about 1869 by Captain A. W. Adams and was Ottawa's pioneer grocery site. Mr. Adams had a grocery store there many years.

The transfer of the property from Mrs. Helen M. Laird, a daughter of A. W. Adams, to the bank is the first change in ownership from the Adams family since Mr. Adams secured the property from the original townsite company.

The tentative plans of the bank are to erect a modern bank and office building on the corner which is an excellent site. It is possible that a 4-story building will be constructed. The first floor would give commodious quarters for the bank. The other three floors could be utilized for office purposes or lodge halls. One fraternal organization is said to have considered the purchase of the site at one time for its lodge home and had considered building such a structure as the bank will probably build.

The bank traded its building at 218 Main street, occupied by the Way Confectionery, to Mrs Laird on the trade for the Adams corner. The bank considered that the Way building would have to be almost completely rebuilt to make a bank structure of it and it is too valuable a structure to raze. The frame building at Third and Main streets is not a valuable one. The bank has a lease for several years on its present home at 207 Main street.

The old building on Third street was a big business building in its day. The Adams grocery was an enterprising business. The structure will be recalled also as the scene of a tragedy many years ago. Two men walked into the building one night. They had been drinking. They quarreled and one killed the other in the grocery with a gun. This bit of tragic history was told today by Col. J. W. Deford.

To Let Dobson Contract

Plumbing and Heating Bids Will be Opened Here.

["Ottawa Herald," 09 Oct 1913, page 1, column 2]

Bids for the plumbing and heating work for the new Dobson building, Third and Main streets were to have been opened today but one of the Kansas City bidders could not be here. He was subpoenaed as a witness in a court case there today. This bidder will be here tonight on the Missouri Pacific and the bids will be opened tomorrow.

A Thurtle, one of the architects, is here from Kansas City. The work is practically stopped until the work of placing the pipes for the plumbing and heating is done. The hollow tile are being placed for the concrete floors.

_______________________________________________________________

Many Options, Few Takers For Local Landmark

["Ottawa Herald," 28 Dec 1977, page 1]

What would you do with a five-story hotel on your hands? That is a question the city must decide since it bought the North American Hotel with the intention of converting it to a home for senior citizens. But when costs escalated, the renovation price tag exceeded the amount that the city could raise. So the idea was dropped reluctantly.

Then someone suggested turning it into a community recreation center. The five floors would provide plenty of space for a jogging track, weight lifting, a sauna, shuffleboard, game rooms, and many other recreation facilities for people of all ages. That idea didn't get much steam so it, too, was dropped.

But all across the country, people are finding new and innovative uses for large, old buildings like the North American Hotel. People are discovering that the buildings allow more square feet than can be built for the same amount of money at today's building costs.

Location is another reason that the older buildings are being given a second chance. Many like the North American (in the town's historic district) are in prime locations that could not be found otherwise.

And even non descript-looking buildings like Ottawa's only remaining hotel have been turned into charming shopping malls, offices, galleries, apartments, and you-name-it.

Any project to do something with the hotel is limited mainly by inadequate finances and lack of imagination. But the money and imagination have been found all across the country when the alternatives have been decay and demolition, parking lots and vacant lots and eyesores and embarrassment.

The November issue of Progressive Architecture is devoted to restoration and tells of some of the innovative uses old buildings are being given.

In Allentown, Pa., a 75-year-old church is becoming a theater. The $15 million Seattle Trade Center opened this year in the former American Can Company plant in downtown Seattle. A yarn mill outside of Norwich, Conn., is the new site of the makers of contract office furniture. In Palm Beach, the 51-year old Biltmore Hotel is being converted into 128 condominiums. An 80

year-old firehouse in New York is becoming a 200-seat theater.

A book titled, "Recycling Buildings", available at the Ottawa Library. outlines uses that have been found for other old buildings.

An advertising firm in San Francisco took a 1907 warehouse for its new office, leaving the existing timber trusses exposed. A 60-year-old Chinese cigar factory became a law office while a feather factory became the office of an architectural firm. San Francisco's now famous Ghirardelli Square, which was formerly a chocolate factory, is popular for shopping. eating, strolling, and sitting in the sun.

In downtown Denver, Larimer Square has been re-opened for new commercial uses. In some of the buildings, their back sides that are not considered architecturally significant, have been replaced by glass.

American hotel chains have found that their high-rises are not popular in some places in Europe. Hilton International converted a monastery and church tower dating from the Middle Ages into a new hotel in Budapest. Howard Johnson converted a group of warehouses facing a canal in Amsterdam into a hotel.

A 1923 school building turned into a shopping center in Los Gatos, Calif, "preserves and exploits the scale and character appropriate to a small town. Where a shopping center of typical dimensions would have violated the particular quality of the area, Old Town fits right into the town and contributes its own kind of visual and cultural delight to the community."

The book states in its preface that the dozens of examples in it show a "return to values of a different sort, all but forgotten in a headlong rush to a progress in which bigness superseded the relationship to people. once a mark of our culture."

Anonymous Offer

A mystery man has offered to buy the North American Hotel for $10,000.

Although that is considerably less than the $60,000 the city paid for it, city officials admit it is the best offer they have had.

"We have not had the response we hoped for when we put the hotel on the market," explains Bob Mills, city manager. "In fact, we have had only one serious offer."

That offer has been made anonymously through a local realtor, Martin Burik. A local business person, working through the realtor, has promised that if sold the hotel, he will make several changes within 16 months.

He would convert the vacant first floor to commercial use and the second floor to offices. The top three stories would be chopped off.

Mills adds that he does not know why the offer was made through an agent. Obviously, the person does not want his identity known at this time. Burik is out of town this week and could not be reached for comment.

Just because there has been only one serious offer does not mean that the city has not tried to sell the hotel. It has advertised in the Wall Street Journal, as well as in the Herald and in newspapers in Kansas City, Topeka, Wichita, St. Louis, Chicago and Dallas.

Mills even put one advertisement in a Japanese newspaper which is that country's equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. He declined, though, when newspapers run by Arabs, Koreans, Canadians, and Columbians requested the advertisements. ,

The response to the advertisements has been very slight. Besides the anonymous offer, there have been only two inquiries. A firm from Ohio requested additional information but has not been heard from since. A group of business people from Lawrence looked at the hotel and indicated it is not interested.

But some city officials point out that some questions about. the anonymous offer must be answered by the Jan. 10 deadline. Even though the $10,000 bid may be the only one submitted, it is an offer that the city can refuse.