Downtown — the Multiple Resource Area of 1985

1910 – present

The J.M.S. Building: South Bend's first tall office building was a Studebaker's. John Mohler Studebaker, Clement's brother and his successor at the head of the corporation, built the J.M.S. Building at 108 North Main in 1910, to designs of Solon S. Beman of Chicago — the architect of the company town of Pullman, Illinois, and of Studebaker's own Administration Building. The nomination describes an eight-story structure of brick and white terra cotta in the Commercial style of the Chicago School with Classical Revival details, organized in the tripartite division of the Chicago School: a base of two floors, a shaft of five, and a capital at the eighth. It was listed on 5 June 1985, and it still stands at Main and Washington, the downtown's oldest office tower.

The banks and blocks: The 1985 batch took the commercial downtown as a set. The Citizens Bank at 112 West Jefferson and the Farmers Security Bank at 133 South Main — the latter by Perkins, Fellows & Hamilton of Chicago, on the Multiple Resource Area narrative's attribution — are entered as buildings here and as institutions in the Banks section. With them stand the All American Bank Building at 111 West Washington, the I&M Building at 220 West Colfax, the John G. Kerr Company at 121 West Colfax, the W. R. Hinkle & Co. building at 225 North Lafayette, the Hoffman Hotel at 120 West LaSalle and the Second St. Joseph Hotel at 117–119 West Colfax — a seventeen-block downtown, in the MRA's own framing, built largely by Chicago architects eighty miles east of their offices and by the one prolific local firm, Austin & Shambleau. One downtown building in the batch has since led a travelling life: the South Bend Remedy Company building, listed at 220 West LaSalle in 1985, was moved in 1988 to 501 West Colfax and moved again in 2003 to 402 West Washington, and stands on the Register under both its listings.

The LaSalle Hotel: The LaSalle Hotel at 237 North Michigan, with its annex at 306 North Michigan, was built in 1921 and closed as a hotel in 1973; both buildings were listed in the 1985 batch. After decades of thin investment and a series of announced rehabilitations that never closed, the city ran a public competition for the building in 2013, and on 24 November 2014 the Redevelopment Commission approved a development agreement with Real America of Fishers. The conversion, about $12 million, broke ground in April 2015: 67 apartments — 51 one-bedroom and 16 two-bedroom — over some 8,000 square feet of commercial space, with the lobby and the wood-paneled Brandywine Room preserved. The LaSalle stands today as downtown apartments, the hotel of 1921 in residential use.

Sources:

1. National Register nominations, Downtown South Bend Historic Multiple Resource Area — the J.M.S. Building sheet (Beman, the Chicago School tripartite description), the MRA narrative (the seventeen blocks, the Chicago architects, Perkins, Fellows & Hamilton at the Farmers Security Bank, Austin & Shambleau as the prolific local firm), and the sheets for the banks, hotels and commercial buildings named.
2. National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Joseph County — the LaSalle Hotel and LaSalle Annex listings of 5 June 1985, and the South Bend Remedy Company's two listings and two moves.
3. City of South Bend Redevelopment Commission records (2013–2015) and the South Bend Tribune, via the South Bend Regional Chamber — the LaSalle's 1921 building and 1973 closing, the 2013 competition, the Real America agreement of 24 November 2014, the April 2015 groundbreaking, the $12 million cost and the apartment program.