Robertson's — the Department Store Building (1923)

1923 – present

The building: The block at 209–217 South Michigan Street carries the city's layers in one parcel: it was the site of the Studebaker brothers' blacksmith shop, then of the Auditorium Theatre, and then of the department store. George A. Robertson, whose store had opened on Michigan Street in 1904, bought the property in 1922 and in 1923 built the store building that stands today. It was planned at eight stories and construction ended at the sixth, a seventh floor added later — still, on the university survey's account, one of the largest department stores in this part of the country. The store itself, bought by the brothers Sig and Will Welber in 1932, was a retail pioneer on this ground: the first escalator in South Bend, in 1948, and the first building-wide air conditioning in the city, with a sixth-floor tearoom and auditorium. Robertson's closed in 1986, and the building was converted to its present use as affordable housing for seniors — the Robertson's apartments, the department store's name kept on the block it built.

Sources:

1. Building South Bend, "Robertson's" (ND-SB-03161) — the site's succession from blacksmith shop to Auditorium Theatre to store, the 1922 purchase, the 1923 building, the six stories built of eight planned and the seventh added.
2. Michiana Jewish Historical Society, "Robertson's Department Store" — the store's 1904 opening, the Welber purchase of 1932, the 1948 escalator and the air conditioning, the 1986 closing and the conversion to senior housing.