01-04-2008
Congress Avenue landmark gets a makeover

The historic Yaring's department store on Congress Avenue, which has sat empty for nine years, is getting a dramatic redo.
The building at 506 Congress Ave., which was constructed in the late 1880s, is best known for the store Jacob Schmidt opened in 1936.
Yaring's, once a pillar of downtown commerce, closed in 1998. A forlorn "For Lease" sign has hung across its pink stucco facade for years.
Now, the plan is to renovate it for retail or restaurant use on the first floor and offices on the second and third floors, said Kevin Kimbrough, vice president of Oxford Commercial, which oversees leasing of the building for owner Walter Penn.
"It's got tremendous potential, but it has been hidden for a long time," Kimbrough said. "Underneath is a building that will really stand out."
Austin architect Dick Clark has been hired to design the project, which will focus on returning the facade to its art deco period. Although the building dates back to the late 1880s, its last remaining significant architecture is from the 1930s.
The renovation of the facade will include punching out windows that were covered over decades ago and retaining the building's signature vertical sign. The building will painted a muted green. Inside, Clark said, there was little to salvage.
"It has been remodeled and remodeled, and in the state it was in, a lot of it had to be gutted," he said. "But we're going to try to preserve the character of the building in any way we can."
Among the surviving features are original hardwood floors and exposed brick walls. A rooftop garden patio overlooking Congress Avenue will be added to the project, which is expected to be completed by August.
"When the scaffolding comes down, it will be an incredible addition to Congress Avenue," Clark said.
The Austin Downtown Alliance welcomed the retail plans.
"We see this as a real turning point for downtown and retail on Congress Avenue," said Molly Alexander, associate director of the alliance. "What the owner's doing supports the efforts to revitalize our buildings and bring back downtown retail."
A study by the alliance in 2005 found that of 85 businesses on Congress Avenue, from Lady Bird Lake to the Capitol, just 13 were retail.
It was a far different scene during Yaring's heyday from the 1930s through the 1960s.
In a 1993 interview, Leon Schmidt, Jacob Schmidt's son, recalled the days when throngs of shoppers filled downtown on weekends and retailers counted themselves lucky if they could find storefront space on Congress Avenue.
"If you had property on Congress Avenue, you had an annuity for life," he said.
With the arrival of climate-controlled malls in the 1960s, many downtown shops were closed. Yaring's, which grew to a chain of 10 stores, was sold to an Alabama-based retailer in 1993 and closed for good in 1998.
Penn, an Austin businessman, bought the Yaring's building in 2001, but renovation plans were put on hold to weather the tech bust.
Now, Kimbrough said, the time is right.
A wave of condo projects has drawn a new generation of people downtown, and corner stores, dry cleaners and boutiques are arriving to serve them.
"There is so much happening downtown, and we feel like our building has a lot to offer to the mix," he said.