Take a look at this building in Jersey City (which has since opened for business):

It’s a small apartment building in form, but the units—14 of them—are actually condominiums, which, according to the project’s website, sell about in the $500,000-$650,000 range. And it’s—of course—a historic building with a different use in its past, save for the small modern rooftop addition.

What do you think it was?

One of the interesting things about older buildings in general is how frequently their particular uses are not obvious, and consequently how adaptable they are. It’s lucky, because it makes adaptive reuse—typically, preservation of the structure by making it into some new viable business—pretty easy in a lot of cases. Think about the old factories or schools or office buildings or apartment buildings which, with relatively simple alterations, could really be…any of those things.

And compare this to the over-designed single-use buildings today, which are immediately identifiable as being intended for one use. There’s much less you can do with a modern low-slung school or a modern apartment building or office building, or, especially, a factory!

Which is…not quite what this was. It was not a manufacturing facility, but a showroom, for Packard automobiles! Lots of early car showrooms were basically tweaked typical urban buildings. Obviously the interior has been substantially redone, but that would likely be the case for any very old building—this was built in 1928—undergoing such a conversion.

Imagine doing much of anything different with a modern car dealership structure. I think it’s pretty neat that as late as 1928 we were still building this kind of thing, let alone for cars. You would never know it wasn’t just another small residential building its whole life. Well, if you were an architectural historian, you’d probably be able to tell; I bet the oversized windows suggest an industrial/commercial history. But some new residential buildings have adopted that style to make you think they used to be warehouses or something like that!

So there’s the specific here: a great and profitable way to preserve a handsome building with an outmoded use and bring new housing to a housing-crunched area. And there’s the abstract: car-focused buildings can be beautiful!

Related Reading:

“Excuse Me, Where’s the Car Aisle?”

Olive and Other Oils

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #24

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