Seeking to restore the building at 1840 West Broad Street, Sauer Properties enlisted Commonwealth Architects to turn the structure into a usable business space. The building, built in 1919 and originally used as an automobile dealership, consists of a two-story primary façade which contained the show room and a mezzanine space. A service area can be found in the back of the building.
Commonwealth Architects restored the façade and interior spaces which included reintroducing the skylights in the service area, restoring the show room and updating the building’s plumbing and HVAC system. In addition, a simple piece of structural glass was secured to the top of the second-floor mezzanine railing to meet code requirements without damaging its historical integrity. This method was featured in the National Park Service’s Interpreting the Standards Bulletin #46 as a proper way to modify historic interior railing to meet building code.
All work was designed per the Department of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation requirements.
