News

Developer peeling back history on East Allen Street

103 East Allen Street a year ago and the way it looks today with the original facade uncovered.

By Matt Matteson, Published: February 17, 2018

What’s old is new again in the 100 block of East Allen Street, where contractors have literally peeled back history.

The old yellow brick exterior on the former the almost century-old building has been removed and hauled off, exposing the original red brick, unobstructed second-floor windows and the names of long-ago occupants.
Built in 1920 as Joines Motor Co., a Ford dealership, the 24,000-square-foot building is sturdy enough to hold cars, which were displayed on a second-floor showroom. The next occupant kept the Ford dealership, under the name of owner Francis S. Wetmur Sr., who etched his name in stone on the upper-most façade facing Allen Street.
The building later became home to Robotyper. IBM developed Robotyper in 1963 as a robotic typewriting machine that could mass-produce documents using a punch-card memory system.
After a 1930s foreclosure, the Laborer’s Building and Loan Association sold it to Chipman LaCrosse Hosiery Mill.
In the early 1990s it became the Land Development Building, where the county issued building permits and housed the Planning Department and Fire Marshal’s Office.
In 2006, attorney Harley Stepp and Leisure Craft owner Dick Herman bought the building from the county. They sold it last summer for $1,125,000 to Allen Street Partners, a development company made up of Tom Davis and building contractor Andrew Riddle and brothers Sammy and Scott Riddle. The two-story building, which comes with 35 parking spaces, is valued on the tax books at $1.37 million.
“We want to restore this building to its 1920s look,” said Andrew Riddle, who is overseeing the project. “It will be a mixed-use type of building.”
Riddle said that the interior will be completely gutted and the massive west-facing windows that Robotyper bricked up will be replaced with new ones. What comes next is yet undetermined. Riddle says everything is still on the table but it will be some type of adaptive reuse. Another term he uses to describe the new look is “soft industrial.”
“This building has a story to tell,” said Riddle and he has called on the community to share their artifacts, pictures, and stories about the building.
There are plans to have a gallery of historical material just inside the building. The developers asked people who have historical materials or information to contact Sam Riddle at 828-243-3605.

Editor Bill Moss contributed reporting.