Butler Square (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

 office building, place with historical importance

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Butler Square is a former warehouse building listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 as having one of the foremost architectural designs in Minneapolis. The architect, Harry Wild Jones, designed other buildings in Minneapolis such as the Spanish Rite Temple, Calvary Baptist Church, the Lakewood Cemetery Chapel, and the Washburn Park Water Tower.

It was originally built as a warehouse for Butler Brothers, a mail-order firm. It had rather heavy construction in keeping with its function as a warehouse, featuring thick interior masonry walls with thin, recessed windows topped by corbelled parapets. The interior is built with heavy timber posts and beams, cut from Douglas fir grown near Aitkin, Minnesota. The columns are 24 inches wide at the bottom level, gradually diminishing to 9 inches wide on the top level. The basement included a horse stable, to accommodate deliveries, and the building had three large coal-fired boilers for heating. Mechanical elevators were used to move goods throughout the building. The building had a rail spur to facilitate boxcar loading. Gradually, as truck transportation became more competitive with rail transportation, the urban location of the building rendered it inefficient as a warehouse.

In 1972, real estate developer Charles Coyer purchased the building with plans to rebuild the east half of the building as an office-retail complex. As part of the renovation, a central atrium was built to allow natural light into the building. This made the retail and office space more marketable, since the large floor space and small windows made it difficult to get enough natural light into the interior. James Binger purchased the building in 1979 with similar plans to develop the west half of the building. The atrium on that side was built with more of the heavy timber construction exposed, and more efficient mechanical systems were installed. The renovation of the building has served as a catalyst for additional development and preservation within the Minneapolis Warehouse District.