Ogilvie Hardware Company Building: A 1926 Warehouse Turned Affordable Housing

Inside one of the apartments after the project was completed. Image from the National Park Service's page.

The Ogilvie Hardware Company Building in Shreveport, Louisiana, was built in 1926 beside a railroad spur for a wholesale hardware business. It is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its local significance, as part of Shreveport's importance in regional commerce as a railroad hub in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The warehouse has four storeys and a basement. It is built of reinforced concrete and hollow tile with a brick veneer, and is marked by horizontal bands of steel windows.

Years of vacancy

The building was in use until 1999, then stood empty for over ten years. Its location — somewhat away from the city centre and cut off by several elevated expressways — long limited its appeal to developers. It was finally bought, and in late 2011 work began to convert it into affordable housing.

Top: the front after rehabilitation. Bottom: the refurbished historic windows from inside, with the added window system; note how close the elevated expressways are. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Keeping the industrial character

The ninety one- and two-bedroom apartments were fitted in around the building's industrial features:

• Concrete columns. The cast concrete columns were left exposed, with their unusual capitals patterned in alternating vertical and horizontal lines left by the wooden moulds.
• Windows. The original steel windows were repaired, and a new window system was added on the inside, behind them, to make them more energy efficient and meet LEED energy requirements.
• Loading docks. Kept on the exterior, they now serve as balconies for some first-floor apartments.

Apartments in the basement

To reach the residential density the Low-Income Housing Credit program required, the basement had to hold apartments too. A little excavation and subtle regrading of the ground let the basement apartments have full-height windows and doors and small patios, out of sight from the main elevation and without altering the building's historic industrial character.

Financing and results

The $16 million rehabilitation combined:

• the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentive;
• Louisiana's State Commercial Rehabilitation Tax Credit;
• the Federal Low-Income Housing Credit.

The completed project achieved LEED Gold certification.

Sources

• National Park Service, Technical Preservation Services, "Ogilvie Hardware Company Building, Shreveport, Louisiana." https://www.nps.gov/articles/ogilvie-hardware-la.htm
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.