Buildings could get new looks
By Cosby Woodruff
This building at 116 Dexter Ave. in Montgomery is eligible for a facade grant.
Real estate investor Tranum Fitzpatrick hopes to use part of a grant to turn three dilapidated buildings on Dexter Avenue into part of the heart of a revitalized downtown Montgomery.
Fitzpatrick's buildings at 100, 110 and 116 Dexter Ave. need massive work inside and out to make them useful again. He likely will be on his own to pay for the interior renovations, but Montgomery officials hope his buildings will be the first to get new facades from a $493,000 grant.
Building owners and the city will work together to restore facades to a historical appearance. That means ripping down stucco, brick and metal shells and replacing it with period stone, brick and decorative ironwork.
Christy Anderson, a city planner who is spearheading the grant projects, said Fitzpatrick's three buildings, which sit next to each other behind the city bus exchange, are at the front of the line for renovations.
The city will soon meet with architects for renderings and build-to specifications. If Fitzpatrick approves, the city could bid out the work by late summer, she said.
Fitzpatrick's buildings have been empty for years, some for as many as 20 years or more. Signs on one indicate it was a bail bond agency. Another was a Chinese eatery and the other was once a furniture store.
Now they are empty, unused and in an advanced state of decay. But Fitzpatrick and city officials look past the decay to see the potential.
He has hopes for the buildings, but no firm plans right now. He said the area is a developing market that could have many uses for his buildings.
"You don't know which way it is going to go," he said.
Loft apartments are likely, but retail or office spaces also are possibilities for the sites.
Fitzpatrick said he has seen a residential demand in similar neighborhoods in other cities.
"The pattern is the first thing that happens is residential," he said. "You have got to have the basics, and you have got to have jobs. If you have that, a residential market will start to develop."
Whatever Fitzpatrick does with his buildings, he and Anderson agree it will improve the area, which has limited private businesses.
The grant covers portions of Dexter Avenue, Commerce Street, South Court Street, South Perry Street, Monroe Street, Montgomery Street and Bibb Street.
Anderson said Fitzpatrick's buildings are typical of the turn-of-the-century structures in that area. Windows on upper floors have been enclosed with brick, block or metal, meaning no natural light enters above street level.
Returning those windows to their historical state puts a practical side on the grant's work.
"We want to encourage people to think about how to utilize space about street level," she said.
Fitzpatrick's property is one of three sets of buildings that have advanced this far in the program. Anderson said he did not know how far the money would go, but she plans on stretching it as far as she can.
Fitzpatrick said the city's help means an earlier start to renovating his buildings.
"We very much appreciate the opportunity to restore these exteriors," he said.
Of Fitzpatrick's three buildings, the three-story structure at 116 Dexter has the most historical exterior, but its interior needs the most work.
Most of the original stone and ironwork is in place on that building, but it shows more than a century of wear and tear.
The building at 100 Dexter has the most structurally sound interior, but it will require the most façade work. Its storefront display windows were removed in an earlier remodeling and replaced with a glass-and-metal façade.
Outlines of the original front are visible on the sub-floor. Original arched windows, long since bricked in, also are visible on the long exterior wall along Perry Street.
Fitzpatrick wondered aloud that the high ceilings and wide-open spaces could be popular with loft-dwellers.
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), and the downtown living thing is slow to take off.
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