Scherer Building
IllinoisThe Threat
In late 2001, CVS announced its intention to acquire four historic structures at the corner of State and Division in Chicago’s Gold Coast—a National Register District— and demolish them all to build a new pharmacy building. Neighborhood advocates arose in indignation, pointing to a nearby one-story Walgreen’s that had wiped out historic structures on another prominent corner a few years earlier. Protest and petition-signing rallies were organized by an advocacy group, Preservation Chicago, to raise awareness of the threat.
The Preservation Effort
With the pro bono assistance of a preservation architect and engineer, LPCI prepared a reuse plan which it presented to the local alderman. He, in turn, offered a compromise to preserve the most prominent of the four structures, the Scherer Building. Built in 1886, ironically as a corner pharmacy and residential flats, this brick structure featured an iconic corner turret with colored glass window insets. The compromise also would save the façade of an adjacent greystone, although two other structures—one a historic apartment building—would be demolished to accommodate a new loading dock. Concurrently, the National Trust intervened through its Chain Drugstore Initiative to work with CVS at the corporate level to accept the proposed compromise. City permits were approved and construction began in early 2003.
Unfortunately, because of the deteriorated condition of the turret’s decorative sheet metal panels—and because the developer employed by CVS was under time pressures to get the new store open—the restoration of the turret was abandoned without city approval, in favor of more expeditious but inappropriate dark aluminum cladding. The drugstore opened in February of 2004, but preservationists and neighbors remained unhappy with the clumsy treatment of the corner turret.
The Result
Preservation advocates then asked the alderman and city officials to enforce the agreed-upon permit requirements and CVS graciously agreed to remove the inappropriate cladding and restore the original turret. This work finally was completed in the summer of 2005. Today, the new CVS drugstore fits into its historic neighborhood, while boasting a historically appropriate decorative copper-clad turret that anchors this busy intersection as it has for 120 years.
For more information contact:
James Peters
Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois
Chicago, IL
312-922-1742
