Westside Lofts

Once a happening street on the downtown trolley line to the stockyards, this building fell into dire straits after the great white flight of the 60’s. It was cut off from the urban fabric by a water treatment plant. Re-gentrification started again when artists and architects started taking over spaces from prostitutes and drug dealers. At one point, you could stand in the basement and see the moon thru the roof. After fixing the holes, relaying brick, and installing a new roof, the building was configured using its historical layout, with residences above storefront commercial. Loose plaster was knocked off the brick, wood floors were re-laid and furnishing, fixtures and equipment were put back in. Store front glass and Ipe-filled, boarded-up openings, along with two other businesses’ improving their holdings, the drug dealers left and the block came back to life. A creative use of old doors formed the handrail for the back porches of the residence. A huge, Cottonwood tree inspired the silhouette of budding branches to be wrapped around the cabinets’ fronts by 3-Axis and shatter glass tile reckoned back to the building’s storied past. Now artists, professors, graphic designers, printers, contractors and models inhabit the space and with some vision and lots of hard work the neighborhood is coming back to life again.