As the Friends of the Public Square (FOPS) pursues improvements and enhancements to Seventh Street Park, a significant building on the perimeter of the park, 702-704 Columbia Street, is soon to get a much needed restoration.
The proposed project will create a restaurant space and two retail spaces on the ground floor of the building and four residential units on the second and third floors and involves restoring the facade and building an addition at the rear. Although the building is adjacent to the so-called "Depot District," this is not a Galvan Foundation project.
On Friday, the project went before the Historic Preservation Commission. In the presentation to the HPC, some interesting information emerged about the building. Most interesting is that the plywood panels at the top of the windows on the second and third floors were installed to hold rectangular storm windows. Amazingly, the original arched windows survive behind those panels.
The plan is to restore the windows to their original arched configuration. The proposal was to replicate and replace them, but the HPC asked the applicant to consider repairing and restoring the original wood windows instead of replacing them.
The plan was also to restore the existing storefronts, but Chip Bohl, architect member of the HPC, suggested that the storefront as it exists today is "not original and not worth restoring."
Bohl asked the applicant to find historic pictures of the building to assist in determining what the original configuration of the storefronts might have been.
Gossips was able to find these historic images and share them with the applicant. In each, the building appears in the background.
Photo: Columbia County Historical Society |
Bohl called 702-704 Columbia Street "a handsome building" with "a lot of the original materials still there." He went on to say, "Its restoration is going to be important to the park and the community."
If any readers have or know of historic photographs of the building that could help guide the restoration, please share them with Gossips at carole@gossipsofrivertown.com. I will pass them along to the applicant and the HPC.
COPYRIGHT 2022 CAROLE OSTERINK
I can't imagine living in an apartment there - going absolutely bonkers hearing all the trucks and traffic passing by and especially the racket every truck makes as they rumble over the railroad tracks. It'd be like torture. B Huston
ReplyDeleteGlad to see this. The perimeter of the square is as important as the square itself. Next step is to get rid of that crap convenience store on the Park.
ReplyDeletelooks like a wonderful and much needed renovation. The building always has had good bones but has been misused. Touch corner yes, but not much worse than a (3rd and Warren, 7th & Warren, Columbia and 6th , etc).
ReplyDeleteAnother reason we need the trucks out of Hudson. I am sure 702-704 Columbia Street will be wonderful.
ReplyDeleteNice photos
ReplyDelete