Work just began on another of our Historic Adaptive Reuse Projects – this one at 914 12th Street. Ridgeway Studios is a listed four story downtown historic hotel, that had been converted to an SRO rooming house about 30 years ago with 56 units; we are turning it into 21 apartments. It boasts among the few remaining bay window facades, with windows hanging handily over the property line into the alley – so low that they have often gotten hit by passing garbage trucks in the past. We’ve gotten City ok to set up a warning system to prevent those impacts . lots of demo is the beginning of a project like this. Materials are all sorted and stockpiled on site for separate pick up: wood, plaster, metal, electrical parts. An interesting discovery were tiny windows that were buried in some of the walls between bay windows – they used to be ventilation for drop down murphy beds; every square inch of space was used then. With few units, we are creating some needed elbow room. While the finished layout will still have very modest size units that are affordable, each will have their own kitchen and bathroom; and there will be some common area on the ground floor including a bike storage room, a game room and space for tenant service and management offices. Mike and Project Superintendent Jim Kennard
