Readmore building receives RNR help

A 134-year-old downtown Richmond building has a new future.

Richmond Neighborhood Restoration will renovate the Readmore building at 901 E. Main St. with financing from Revitalize Richmond, the strategic initiative led by Earlham College, according to a news release. The renovated building will be turned over to the city’s Placement Loans Accelerating Company and Entrepreneurs program, referred to as PLACE, to attract a first-floor business.

“RNR is beyond excited to begin working on the former Readmore building,” said Roxie Deer, RNR’s executive director, in the release. “This project sits at the heart of our town, and this project is vital to changing the conversation about our downtown district and our community. We are thankful to work with Revitalize Richmond to see this project come to fruition.”

The three-story building on the southeast corner of Ninth and East Main streets was built in 1880 by John A. Hasecoster in the Italianate style. It has housed a tailor shop, drugstore, Readmore bookstore and coffee shop. The building has remained vacant since the coffee shop closed. 

The blue building features a painting of blues musician Charley Patton on the west side near the fire escape. The first-floor windows and doors have signs touting its status as the PLACE program’s pilot building. That was announced by then-Mayor Dave Snow during 2021 to white-box the building and make it easier for a business to locate there.

That effort followed an Indianapolis-based developer’s plan to create apartment spaces on the second and third floors and house an art gallery on the first floor. Demolition work occurred during 2018, but that plan never came to fruition.

Now, RNR will essentially finish the job. The project will include creating modern apartments on the second and third floors and white-boxing the first floor for a future business. Renovations will include window replacements, new HVAC systems, plumbing, electrical work and extensive refurbishments to create the upper-floor residential units, the release said.

Revitalize Richmond received a $25 million grant from the Lilly Endowment’s College and Community Collaboration effort for a five-year effort that aims to accelerate community development in Richmond with a concentration on downtown.

“Dedicating resources to projects like the Readmore building exemplifies our commitment to revitalizing Richmond and investing in the city’s future,” said Dakota Collins, director of community relations at Earlham. “This partnership with RNR not only preserves a significant piece of our shared history but also creates new opportunities for local entrepreneurs and residents. It’s a testament to what we can achieve when our community comes together with a shared vision for progress.”

This is RNR’s initial Revitalize Richmond project, but the group, which was founded in 2015 to preserve Richmond’s historic neighborhoods, previously renovated the building at 720/724 E. Main St., creating three one-bedroom apartments, one two-bedroom apartment and a large office space on the upper floors. That building was then sold to the city for the PLACE program.

Grassroots Neighborhood Coalition, a nonprofit created by the city to simplify property purchases, has owned the Readmore building since 2021. According to county property records, Grassroots owns 13 parcels, including Readmore and 900 E. Main St., which is the Tivoli theater building that was owned by the same developer as the Readmore building.

The other 11 parcels are all within the block bordered by North 12th Street, East Main Street, North 13th Street and North A Street.