The Oak Park village board has granted landmark status to a 96-year-old commercial building that was the first built-from-the-ground-up Marshall Field’s store outside of Chicago.
The five-story structure, 1144 Lake St., in the village’s downtown was cited for its connection to the historic, but now defunct, upscale retailer and for its architecture — a stately and unique blend of French Revival and Art Deco.
“Particularly of interest is the French mansard roof bringing a French Empire style to its bold Art Deco color contrasting design,” Oak Park Planning and Urban Design Manager Michael Bruce said. “Truly a unique building with important historic and cultural significance.”
Only the building’s exterior was landmarked. The building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988.
Built in 1929, the store was designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, the legendary firm that also created Marshall Field’s, flagship store — now Macy’s — at 111 N. State St., in 1914.
The village board approved the designation last month, along with an ordinance in support of the building receiving a 12-year, $550,000 real estate tax reduction under Cook County’s Class L program that’s designed to help fund the rehabilitation of historic properties.
The building’s owner, Chicago-based 1144 Lake Street LLC, applied for Class L status. The company seeks to rehab the building and lease the ground floor and basement to Barnes & Noble.
The 25,000-square-foot space has been vacant since its last tenant, Borders, left in 2011 when the national bookstore chain went out of business.
Efforts to put a bank branch in the space failed, as did a bid to open a grocery store.
“It’s been a long 13 year journey,” Nicholas P. Karris, who heads 1144 Lake Street, told village trustees, before the vote was taken to designate the building.
‘High quality’ building
The Marshall Field’s Oak Park store doesn’t resemble the swank Tiffany-domed State Street flagship, but it was designed with a amount of elegance — and even has a scaled-downed version of the famed Marshall Field’s clock on its corner.
The ground floor of the building’s exterior is clad in granite and Tennessee marble, followed by three stories of limestone. A series of dormers visible to the public, peek out from the mansard roof.
Vertical bays of windows race up the store’s main elevations along both Lake Street and Harlem Avenue. The bronze metalwork within the bays have long oxidized to a warm Marshall Field’s green, the chain’s trademark color.
The Oak Park building and its twin that opened in Evanston a few months later were Marshall Field’s first specially-built stores outside of Chicago. A Lake Forest store predates them by a year, but it was an adaptive reuse of an existing bank.
“A growing middle class and population shift was occurring, and Marshall Field capitalized on this and began expanding outside of Chicago,” Bruce said.
Chicago Architecture Center CEO Eleanor Esser Gorski said Graham, Anderson, Probst & White met the challenge by designing the Oak Park store to be a “good neighbor” to their new locations.
“High quality, you know?” Gorski said. “The metalwork that’s on the building, the mansard roof. Seriously, if you just saw that building, you would think you were on Michigan Avenue.”
The store was designed during Graham, Anderson, Probst & White’s remarkable 23-year run from 1913 to 1936.
During that time, the firm created the Wrigley Building, the Shedd Aquarium, Merchandise Mart, the Field Museum, the Old Main Post Office and Union Station. They also redesigned the former Palace of Fine Arts building from the 1893 World’s Fair into the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.
“Even though they’re different commercial buildings, they are all very elegant and refined and make this ordinary experience of [going to a] post office, or retail, feel special,” Gorski said.
The big payback?
The Oak Park Marshall Field’s store closed in 1986. The Evanston store closed in 1987 and was converted into Evanston Galleria Condominiums.
Macy’s bought Marshall Field’s in 2005 and dropped the name in 2006.
Bruce said the landmark designation and the accompanying Class L status will help the developer carry out a $3.5 million build-out for the Barnes & Noble store, which is expected to open next year.
The building’s exterior concrete will be repaired, and its elevator, heating and cooling systems and electrical system will also be improved, he said.
Once the building is fixed up, the payback to taxpayers, according to a study presented to the village board, would be an additional $50,000 a year in property taxes and $100,000 in local sales taxes generated by the bookstore.