Sculpture Flats

I’ve been working with developer and contractor Jay Martin of Renew on this adaptive reuse project through the winter months and am excited about seeing it break ground soon. 

We’ve taken the site of a former Mr. T’s tire store at 1155 E. Main Street and redeveloped it as a live/work space. The original Mr. T’s will contain up to four spaces that can serve as offices or retail storefronts. It is bookended by two new matching 11-unit apartment buildings. The development’s name is a nod to its close proximity to John Henry’s sculpture yards and the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park.

In the new buildings, we configured the three units on the ground floor as live/work spaces. Access from the street allows the front room of each unit to be set up as a storefront or retail space, with a galley kitchen in the center and a bedroom and bath in the back. The remaining two floors have a mix of one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and studio apartments.

The new buildings are contemporary, but scaled to be friendly to the street, not imposing. They have a warm color palette and incorporate a covered stoop for the ground floor and balconies for the upper floor apartments. A grid created by projecting the walls and overhangs toward the street creates a protective zone for the apartments, especially the ground-floor units, by inserting some covered space between the units and the street.

The original Mr. T’s, now the commercial space, has an outdoor patio facing the street to serve as outdoor space for the buildings’ inhabitants and to interact with the street. 

I’ve been fortunate to work with a great team on Sculpture Flats, including Jay Martin at Renew, Glen Craig of Craig Design Group (landscape architecture), and March Adams & Associates (construction engineering).