The Sullivan Building — Rogers Krajnak Architects Inc.

The Sullivan Building in Newark, Ohio, is the sixth of the eight Midwestern “jewel-box” banks designed by renowned Chicago architect Louis Sullivan.

The building, which opened its doors as The Old Home Bank in 1915, had been modified numerous times for various owners and tenants, including a meat market, jewelry store and an ice cream parlor. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

When yet another new owner, the Licking County Foundation, decided to transform the 5,820-gross-square-foot building into its county tourism and visitors’ bureau, the board members commissioned Rogers Krajnak Architects–Principals Darryl Rogers, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, and Peter Krajnak, AIA, NCARB, and Senior Project Manager Daniel P. DeGreve, R.A. NCARB, LEED Green Association–to restore it and expand it in harmony with Sullivan’s original vision as documented by period photographs and scans of Sullivan’s original construction drawings.

“In his absence, Sullivan’s original drawings did the talking for him, creating a beautiful illustrative roadmap that guided the entire project team,” Rogers says.

Sullivan presented a unique vision of a small-town American bank, one that replaced Mediterranean acanthus leaves and palmettes with motifs of American vegetation and monetary currency. 

“In his work, including The Home Building Association of Newark, Sullivan was hinting at another kind of modern that was not aimed at upending the Classical tradition, but at stretching its expression,” DeGreve says.

The decade long, multi-phased project included the stabilization and restoration of the interior and exterior, reconstruction of the basement portions of the building that extend under the city sidewalks and acquisition and renovation of the adjacent Annex building.

The exterior restoration included reconstructing the previously altered southeast building corner and entrance vestibule, restoring and replacing terra-cotta units and mosaic tiles, re-leading and repairing the opalescent glass awning windows and quarry-glass casement windows.

The Sullivan Building’s former Banking Hall is now the Welcome Center. The refurbished original safe and the original wood check benches tell the story of the room’s initial function, while the new quartz panel flooring pattern recalls the footprints of the long-gone teller stations in a space that’s now being used for community gatherings and events.

Custom mobile display units, which are based on the footprint and form of the original bank teller stations, are in the Welcome Center and public areas of the basement.

The team sourced new Vermont Verde serpentine stone from the original quarry to fill in missing sections of the 8-foot-tall wall panels. 

Newly designed elements, such as the suspended custom bronze channel uplighting fixture, recall Sullivan’s original that was supported from the glass panels on the teller stations. Missing sections of Louis Millet’s stenciled, geometric wall and ceiling murals were recreated while other sections were stabilized and conserved.  

Similar conservation efforts in the adjoining former Consultation Room, which is used for exhibits and a retail boutique, restored the stenciling on the barrel-vaulted ceiling, leaving some of the decayed portions as historical reference points. 

“Our intention was to ameliorate, not obliterate, the vestiges of the building’s past, letting us restore this gem without ignoring its scars,” says DeGreve.

To provide accessibility to The Sullivan Building’s three floors, an adjacent 1,266-gross-square foot historic building was acquired at the architectural team’s suggestion and renovated.  

This annex, which is 30 years older than The Sullivan Building, was modified to accommodate a code-compliant stair and elevator that link its three floors. It, too, is part of the historic district, and its soft-fired brick masonry exterior had to be preserved.

Because the annex’s basement and second floors didn’t align with those of The Sullivan Building, the basement walls were underpinned, and floor level was excavated further down. A taller second-floor addition was constructed with a façade that was set back from the historic facade. 

The annex’s simplified interior material palette of painted-steel roof deck, stained concrete stairway, carpet tile flooring at the landings, painted concrete masonry units and painted fiber cement wall panels, which are proportional abstractions of Sullivan’s terra-cotta units, defer to the highly ornamented Sullivan Building.

The multi-phased project presented several challenges, including accelerating the reconstruction of The Sullivan Building basement areas that extended beneath the sidewalks in coordination with the city’s utility and streetscape renewal project. 

The original structural steel that had become corroded from years of water infiltration was replaced with new steel beams and deck, insulation, waterproofing, drainage and concrete slabs. The new code-compliant restrooms and catering kitchen celebrate the exposure of the new steel structure and the original battered-concrete south foundation wall. 

By 2015, when the project commenced, the basement restrooms, locker rooms and lounge designed by Sullivan had been long demolished, leaving behind outlines of the former walls in the mosaic tile flooring. Using new mosaic tile flooring that is subtly distinct from the original, the architectural team highlighted the locations of the original walls while distinguishing new spaces.

The former vault in the basement was repurposed as a gathering space for smaller groups, with the adjacent area serving as a reading salon with new custom woodwork based on the safe deposit privacy booths that were specified in Sullivan’s plans and enclosed by wood-trimmed plaster walls that re-create his design.

Salvaged artifacts and materials, including the doors from the staff lockers and marble from the restrooms, were reincorporated into the consultation room/retail space, basement corridor and new accessible restrooms.

The second floor, which has an open office space and kitchenette, accommodates offices and meeting rooms for the administrative staff. 

It was a once-in-a-lifetime honor, the trio say, to work on such an iconic and important masterpiece.

“We didn’t just restore Sullivan’s building, we restored Sullivan’s spirit, which shines again in this beautiful community space,” Krajnak says. TB