I’ve looked at the old Carter Carburetor Plant on North Grand Boulevard before many times in the past, and it has been demolished and remediated for PCBs. But the office building for the company was located in the heart of Grand Center.
Originally intended to be a skyscraper in 1925, only the first two stories were built, making it the second of two buildings that suffered that fate in Grand Center (the other being the former Woolworth Building).
Architecturally it’s an interesting structure, with elements of the Beaux-Arts, but somehow I find that description to be unsatisfactory. By the 1920s, there were influences from many different directions, and you can see that in the ornamentation.
The Knights of Pythias, which was a famous African American fraternal organization, held their meetings in the buff brick building directly behind the gray limestone front.
There is a large garage underneath this later structure, built in 1929.
The building has now been renovated into the Grand Center Arts Academy, which uses the nearby former Sun Theater as a performance space.
Hi Chris! Thanks for the nice shots of the exterior of this lovely old building.
Bit of info for you: the parking garage is not under the building. It’s next to it on the west side and it’s three or four stories tall. I know because I was in it a few times years ago as a young lad, when my dad worked for Volmer Brothers, a construction company that owned the building at the time – early 1970s.
I would LOVE to know what happened to the ball room in the upper stories. I imagine the Grand Center Arts Academy may have turned it into a cool performance space.