You can read details about the Water Board Building Local Historic District in the Water Board Building Local Historic District Final Report (local copy), which I recommend highly to anyone interested in Detroit's history.

By a resolution dated October 31, 2001, the Detroit City Council charged the Historic Designation Advisory Board, a study committee, with the official study of the proposed Water Board Building Historic District in accordance with Chapter 25 of the 1984 Detroit City Code and the Michigan Local Historic Districts Act.

The proposed Water Board Building Historic District consists of the single building located on the triangular block bounded by Randolph, Bates, and Farmer in the Central Business District. It is located one block north of the Wayne County Building and Cadillac Square, and one block south of Monroe Avenue. Built as offices for city agencies, especially the Water Board, it continues to serve that function. The Water Board Building is the sole contributing resource in the proposed district; there are no nearby resources which would suggest that a multi-building district exists in this area.

HISTORY: [+ expand]

Description:

The Water Board Building is a twenty-three-story steel frame and concrete skyscraper designed in a distinguished Art Deco style influenced by its architect's earlier preference for the more Baroque manner of Beaux Arts Classicism. Arranged with a five-story base, a fifteen-story shaft, and a three-story penthouse, the slender triangular tower with setbacks and clipped corners is the only structure on its small triangular block. Part of Detroit's last surge of tall-building construction before the Great Depression, it provides an interesting contrast to the trio of virtually contemporary Smith, Hinchman, & Grylls-designed tall buildings: The Guardian Building, the Buhl Building, and the last segment of the Penobscot Building. None of those are in the simplified-classical variant of the Art Deco, and the Water Board Building may be Detroit's premier example of a commercial building in that style.

The building is set in a busy downtown commercial district bounded by Randolph Street on the east (primary facade), Bates Street on the northwest, and Farmer Street on the southwest. In plan it is not quite an equilateral triangle; the building's dimensions are 147 feet on Randolph Street, 152.6 feet on Bates Street, and 140.6 feet on Farmer Street. The basement of the structure extends beyond the building approximately three feet on Farmer and Bates Streets, while the extension on the Randolph Street side of the basement beyond the building line is approximately thirty feet. A parking garage is located in the basement. An entry and elevator lobby, customer service area, and stairwells occupy the majority of the ground floor. All upper stories to the twentieth floor are divided into offices except for the fifth floor, which contains a significant public space, the Water Board's meeting room. Service and storage areas occupy the three-story penthouse. After more than seventy-five years of continuous use, the property is in excellent condition and has had few exterior alterations since its construction. A fairly substantial rehabilitation program was undertaken in the early 1980's, and most alterations date from that work program, although window replacement in the upper floors dates to 1977.

All elevations are clad in a polished pink and grey granite watertable at the base, and Bedford Limestone up to the twentieth floor. Parapet walls crown the twentieth-story as well as the three-story penthouse of painted terra cotta. The building's five-story base fills the entire triangular lot. Above, the three facades of the tower all end at right-angle corners, in order to avoid hard-to-use sharply angled corners within. This creates a recess at each corner. Although at first glance the facades are all the same, in fact the three facades all differ, as do the treatments of the three corners.

The primary facade is that on Randolph, characterized by the main entrance centered on the ground floor. The facade is defined by outer bays with tall pilasters at either side and culminating in a simplified segmentally arched pediment, and containing paired windows at each floor. These outer bays run down to ground level, visually isolating the corner bays of the base, which contain a single window at first and second floor levels. The five inner bays of facade alternate paired and single windows, a device made possible by manipulating the width of the limestone curtain wall between window openings; in this way, the spacing of the recessed main entrance and its flanking single windows is carried up into the upper stories. String courses or secondary cornices interrupt the vertical flow above the second, fifth, and fifteenth and nineteenth floors, while the double windows in the outer bays on the sixth floor have horizontal pediments. On the seventeenth through the nineteenth floors, windows are vertically separated with decorative metal spandrels; on the twentieth floor, these are used only in the outer bays, to continue a vertical emphasis within the pilasters that define those bays. Above the twentieth floor the shaft of the tower culminates with the rounded pediments of the outer bays, with an arcaded railing between them. Some of the ornament on the pilaster of the outer bays at the sixteenth floor level and again at the nineteenth and twentieth floors, is reminiscent of classical/prairie ornament common twenty years earlier.

At ground level on that facade a centered main entrance recess two stories tall is flanked by single windows on two stories. The entrance is surrounded by classical pilasters and entablature in the same granite as the base; inscribed in the dark-green marble frieze of the entablature are the words "Water Board Building." The entrance recess has pilasters in the corners, and contains the original bronze frame of a pair of revolving doors, which have now been replaced by hinged doors to provide handicapped access. Above the exterior doors is a large metal framed Chicago-style transom window with a metal spandrel panel painted dark brown, which matches those used in the two-story window openings of the first and second floors generally. These spandrel panels are trimmed with tiny swags along the protruding top edge. Hanging beneath the swags is an alternating row of rosette topped, scalloped edge banners and arrows pointing downward. Above the inner entry doors is a large plate glass transom. The entry recess is flanked by small, single windows on both the first and second stories.

The window arrangement of the first two floors of the Randolph Street elevation is asymmetrical. North of the entrance are two-two-story openings, with Chicago-style triple windows on each floor separated by the typical spandrel. To the south, a recess in the stonework matches the two-story openings to the north, but is filled with a single window flanked with stone on the first floor, and the three-section Chicago-style window on the second floor above. The third through fifth floors have double window openings in the pilaster-defined bays next to the corner bays. In the central bays, fenestration follows the pattern above; the windows are separated vertically by plain stone spandrels, creating a three-story-tall recess divided, where there are two windows to a floor, by a narrow pilaster three stories tall.

The Bates and Farmer facades differ form each other only in first floor details, and are much like the Randolph facade. In general they differ from the Randolph facade only in that the central bays on each floor all contain double windows; these facades do not repeat the more complex fenestration which reflects the entrance below on the Randolph facade. The first and second floors of the Bates facade contain five of the typical double-height window openings with spandrels, the westernmost of which contains an entrance door on the ground floor. The eastern outer bay has a garage door leading to the basement on the first floor, with a single window above; the western has single windows on each floor. The Farmer facade is generally the same as the Bates, but has an entrance door in the center bay, and vertical pairs of windows in the outer bays.

The treatment of the three corners differs. At the base, the southeast corner is an acute angle blunted by a pair of pilasters set at a shallow angle to each other. On the northeast, the corner is chamfered, and a single window is centered in the narrow wall. On the west, the corner is more blunted, and contains paired windows separated by the typical spandrels.

The main facades of the shaft of the building all terminate at right-angle corners, creating recessed corners; this is, no doubt, to avoid useless acutely-angles spaces in the office floors. On the southeast the corner recess is formed by two single narrow bays with a single window in each, with a pilaster set parallel to the Farmer facade. On the northeast, the same narrow bays with single windows are present, but set further apart, and connected by two pilasters set at shallow angles to each other. The western corner recess is the largest; it also uses the narrow single bays at right angles to the adjoining main facade, but these are separated by a wider wall containing a paired window at each floor, and culminating in a colossal cartouche at the parapet.

This arrangement of the western corner may be a survival from an earlier design for the building, which shows the main entrance placed diagonally on what seems to be this corner of the building.

All of the windows in the shaft of the building were replaced in 1977 with single panes somewhat shorter than the opening, in frames of bronze-color aluminum with flat filler panels in the same material above. The windows of the base were replaced later, also with bronze-colored aluminum frames, but set within the original openings and spandrels so as to change the fenestration very little.

The three-story penthouse, now painted white with gold-brown trim, is set back from the parapet of the shaft, and creates a decorative culmination for the building as a whole. Lower two floors of the penthouse are alike; the twenty-third floor is set back again, with is blunted corners expressed as two-story central facades in the corner recesses. The twenty-first and twenty-second floors have main facades of three bays each, with strongly expressed pilasters emphasizing verticality. Secondary pilasters centered in each bay separate single windows on each floor, and the twenty-second floor is topped by an arcaded parapet between the pilasters dividing the bays. The twenty-third floor is generally not seen, except from a great distance; but the corner walls form a continuous surface with those of the floors below in the corner recesses, creating verticality at the top of the building. The top story is also surmounted by an arcaded decorative parapet. The corner recesses of the penthouse feature niches with shell-shape half-domes and an array of classically-inspired ornament such as the cartouches centered at the top center of each recess.

Major interior spaces include the lobby and banking room on the ground floor, and the Water Board meeting room on the fifth floor.

The triangular lobby is small, now somewhat crowded with such later additions as a security desk. The eastern wall contains the centered Randolph entrance, while the other two walls contain three elevator doors each. The lobby is walled in cream-colored marble surmounted by a gilded cornice. The Art-Deco style brass elevator doors are framed in green marble, and contain symbols of the City of Detroit. The elevator cars are original, paneled in cherry with high-style Art Deco decoration in silver metal.

In the west angle is the entrance to the two-story-tall banking room, lined with buff marble, whose generally triangular space is redefined by colossal cream marble Tuscan columns carrying an oval muralled ceiling whose center panel features Neptune, God of the Sea (and, therefore water). This room is much altered in its details, the original teller's cages, light fixtures, and other equipment having been replaced. Nonetheless, it retains its intended monumental quality.

The fifth floor Board Room occupies the same space in the western corner of the building; its floor plan much the shape of a mushroom; unlike the banking room, it remains essentially unaltered. It is entered from the elevator lobby through walnut double doors flanked by matching fluted pilasters supporting a full entablature. The frieze of the entablature has the words "Board Room" printed across it in large gold lettering. The room within is paneled in walnut from floor to ceiling. All furnishings and fixtures in the Board Room are original to the building. Two massive, fluted, octagonal pillars of on dark-green marble bases support the huge paneled beams that intersect one another and define the board's table near the corner of the building. Four rows of original mahogany chairs and tables flank an aisle leading to a balustrade. A more recent arrangement just inside the balustrade includes a podium flanked by chairs at a long narrow table that sits between the two columns. The long mahogany board table, surrounded by chairs, is positioned lengthwise in front of the podium.

To the east, ceiling the mural depicts the official seal of the City of Detroit in grey tones set in a red and gold octagon. The mural over the conference table is centered on an American Eagle perched on a stone; it is set in a blue and gold bordered medallion.

More photos and more description of this building can be found at HistoricDetroit.org.