One of downtown’s most striking Art Moderne buildings at 525 Cotton Street has sold, and space inside is available for office, retail, or light manufacturing uses. At present some 3500-5000 SF is available, but depending on what your goals are, more space could be.
The building is 22,760 SF total, and features 15″ clear heights and vast open areas inside as well as dock door parking and an outside private parking lot. The front facades along McNeil and Cotton Streets are filled with floor-to-ceiling windows and office space is already laid out (but could be changed, depending on your needs).
An early photo of 525 Cotton Street.
The 1939 building was designed by architect Charles Schwars and constructed by The Werner Construction Company, a go-to Shreveport firm responsible for many downtown Shreveport landmarks.
Cotton Street back in the day.
The 1938 budget for the construction of the former Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG) Building was lauded by the Shreveport Times as ‘the biggest downtown construction deal in Shreveport in several years.’
Big investment in troubled times.
Coming on the heels of the stock market crash of 1929 and after ten terrible years of the Great Depression (1929-39), seeing this investment downtown was a cause for celebration. The property itself was purchased for $28,500 ($1 a foot) from old Shreveport, Vicksburg and Pacific Railroad.
$75,000 was budgeted for construction of the brick, concrete and steel building and the rest, roughly $23,000, was for beautification, fixtures and other essentials, including a ‘novelty’- the glass blocks in the front of the building were ‘silvered’ to make them appear to be mirrors.
This unique building is in the D-1-HC (Heavy Commercial Sub District) of Downtown Shreveport, and Uses by Right under the Unified Development Code include art galleries and studios, animal care, educational facility, industrial design centers, offices and a range of other options. If you are interested in a tour or learning more about the space, contact owner Granger Harriss here.
