The Kress Building: An Iconic Example of Adaptive Reuse Success

 

The Kress Building Lofts were originally built in 1936 as the home of the Kress five & dime store.  The Kress Building has served a variety of uses over the course of its life. This Art Deco building has most recently been home to the Fox & Hound pub, which occupies the building’s ground floor retail space. For many years, the upper floors have been vacant – but the building’s most recent previous owner redeveloped those upper floors into loft apartments in 2006.  In 2007, the Kress Building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  The converted lofts were updated in 2008.

The Kress Building Lofts range in size from 803 to 1,144 square feet. There are eight different floor plans on each floor of the building, for a total of 24 units. Units on the building’s east end have east and south views, and units at the building’s west end have west views. All other units in between have south views via new windows carved into the building during redevelopment (the building originally had no other windows besides those on its east and west elevations).  One of the buildings most famous former residents is none other than the Honorable Dr. Fred Forgey.