The long road to redemption

Wallace Engineering's offices, 200 E. Brady St.

Yet, for every ramshackle architectural treasure downtown and in the surrounding areas that has been rehabilitated or transformed, there are probably a half dozen that remain untouched, rotting on their foundations.

The reason is, simply, that adaptive reuse projects aren’t easy. It takes a certain kind of person to have the vision, and endurance, to make it work. So, the Tulsa Business Journal sought out a collection of architects, engineers, designers and owners to ask why more people aren’t doing what they are.

If these walls could talk

“These buildings run the gamut from excessively strong to difficult to keep standing,” said Wallace Engineering Principal Tom Wallace.

And he should know; he bought Wallace Engineering’s 1925 office building, 200 E. Brady St., and the neighboring building, 300 E. Brady, because they were both the former. Originally built for heavy storage, the floors were rated to hold 250 pounds per SF.

The problem? While the buildings had strong floors, they also had flimsy walls made of unreinforced masonry.

“Wind loads were never really considered in older buildings,” Wallace said. “Straight-line winds have come through here and just blown some of these old buildings down.”

He said to remedy the situation he had the walls reinforced with heavy steel beams.

Wallace also said engineering in the 1920s gave greater credit to earth foundations than warranted, so many older buildings, especially those used for industrial purposes, sat on packed-earth foundations. While they certainly wouldn’t pass muster by common standards, “how a building has performed so far is a good indication of how it will perform into the future,” he said.

Hard code to crack

One of the problems most often encountered in an adaptive reuse project is modern building codes, said Ashley Hibbets, director of interior design at Crafton Tull Sparks.

“Some of these buildings were built before the building codes were in place,” she said.

Hibbets pointed to the Americans with Disabilities Act as an example.

“You have to have 36-inch-wide doors, wheelchair access ramps, elevators,” she said. “A lot of these requirements weren’t considerations when the buildings were built.”

Cason Smith, an architect with Kinslow, Keith & Todd Inc., said the key to cracking the code is creativity. Smith pointed to his firm’s recent work on the historic Mayo Building, which has been repurposed to include a restaurant and the YMCA’s downtown offices and gym on the first and second floors, with residential space upstairs.

“We had the one interior staircase, which opens into a huge landing on every floor,” he said.

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