Cornerstone Architects was recently asked by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to host & present a program at our recently completed adaptive re-use project in the historic Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia. The event was held on site at Popkin Tavern and Rich Morse, Principal in Charge at Cornerstone, waxed eloquently about the history of the project.

It all began when Steve Soble, President of Spare Time Chicago, first made contact with Cornerstone Architects in April 2003 on one of his frequent trips home to Richmond from Chicago where he owns 10 family style theme restaurants.  Cornerstone Architects had just finished rehabbing a similar size building at 23 wests Broad for our offices.    Back in the day, this section of Broad Street was known as Furniture Row. The four blocks between 100 East broad and Jefferson Street once contained 12 furniture stores.  Jerry Soble, Steve’s father bought this building in 1963 and operated it continuously as Popkin Furniture. By 2003 he was one of the last remaining furniture stores in this area. Steve and his father are partners in this project.

Steve’s vision for his restaurant in this section of Broad Street was similar to his restaurants in Lincoln Park, Hyde Park, and the Southport Lanes all in Chicago.  All these areas have substantial turn of the century architecture and a young college educated population who live and work downtown.  Many of the Spare Time Chicago restaurants have bowling alleys in addition to billiards. In fact, Southport lanes in Chicago is one of only ten remaining hand set bowling alleys in the country. Our early plans included bowling in the lower level. I think bowling would have been popular here just as it is in Chicago but that area of the basement is prone to water seepage during heavy rains that would ruin the hardwood bowling lanes. Water proofing was discussed but the cost outweighed the benefit.

Recognizing the quality of the building and the corner location, the Owner wisely chose to target his preferred tenants with larger two bedroom apartments featuring refinished wood floors and original pressed tin ceilings.  This building yielded 6 apartments per floor for a total of 18 units.  Many of the other buildings in this area have been divided into small studio apartments taking away the charm of the space. The largest challenge we faced besides building new code required fire exit stairs, was taking down all this tin ceiling and putting it back to sheetrock and insulate the floor of the apartment above provide the proper fire rating. We also added a new four story elevator. The original birdcage elevator, while still functional in the furniture store, did not meet code.

The property is listed on the State Historic Register as a contributing property in the Old and Historic Broad Street and did utilize Historic Tax Credits. Cornerstone prepared all three Parts of the documentation and submittals for the State and Federal program.  This building is also located in the City Enterprise Zone which provided other Incentives such as the Real Estate Tax Abatement, and Real Property Investment Grants. 

This project was done in two phases. The first phase included the apartments, all of the code required improvements, a new roof, and the warm shell for the restaurant. The general contractor was R.E. Lee from Charlottesville. The construction cost was around $85/psf. Apartments became available for rent in December 2005.

Phase II included the entire restaurant finishes, the kitchen, and the built-in booths and tables.  The contractor was CKO Construction of Richmond. The cost of the fit-up work was around $60/psf. The Restaurant opened in October 2006.