The long-awaited transformation of the Threefoot Building in Meridian could start soon, provided the developer gets the go-ahead from federal officials.

John Tampa, president of Ascent Hospitality Management LLC, took possession of the historic building Jan. 6, 2016. Once renovated, the Courtyard by Marriott hotel will have at least 120 rooms. The facility will also have a restaurant that will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a Starbucks coffee shop. Ascent is committed to spending at least $14 million to renovate the 16-story building, according to Tampa.

Ascent has applied for federal and state preservation tax credits to offset the cost of the project, according to Mingo Tingle, chief of Technical Preservation Services with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

The tax credits – 25 percent at the state level and 20 percent at the federal level – allow the developer to take a total of 45 percent of the money spent on the project as a tax credit.

According to Tingle, it’s a three-part process.

Part one – ensuring the building is historically significant – has been completed. The second part involves the proposed plans for the building’s rehabilitation being  reviewed by MDAH and forwarded to the National Park Service. 

The plans were submitted to the park service on Dec. 15 and the agency has to approve or reject them within 30 days, meaning the actual renovation could begin sometime this month, if the application is approved, Tingle said.

The third phase occurs once  renovation is complete and certified by the MDAH and National Park Service.

Meridian Mayor Percy Bland said the entire rehabilitation could take from 14 to 18 months. 

“We’re very excited about it,” Bland said. 

Retaining the Threefoot’s Historic Charm

Since the building was sold, specialists from the MDAH have been working with Ascent and the New Orleans-based architectural firm John T. Campo & Associates Inc.

In April 2016, MDAH archivists photographed nearly every inch of the building’s interior. 

Jennifer Baughn, chief architectural historian with MDAH, said they looked at what historic features MDAH feels should be preserved during the restoration.

“It’s a conversation about what needs to be kept and what needs to be changed,” Baughn said. “Certainly, our biggest priority is to have the building back into use, but we also want to maintain the spaces that are so important to the architecture of the building.”

One of those areas is the first-floor lobby, she said.

“It’s similar to the Standard Life Building in Jackson,” she said. “Which was also a C.H. Lindsey-designed Art Deco skyscraper.”

Once it’s been renovated, the building will keep much of its historical charm, according to a summary of proposed plans submitted to MDAH.

Highlights of the proposal include:

– The elevator lobby will be retained as is with the only change being the removal of the non-historic aluminum storefront door assembly and removal of the directory board to be replaced by a new electronic board for hotel use. The perpendicular corridor will be slightly altered to accommodate the reception area; a small section of marble wainscoting will be removed and reused.

–The historic skylights on the first floor shall be salvaged in-place; a new gypsum board ceiling will be installed below the skylights. The existing partitions located within the first floor beyond the perpendicular corridor will removed and the area will be redesigned to accommodate dining and kitchen areas. The doors located here shall be retained and used elsewhere within the public spaces.

–The remainder of the first floor – currently heavily altered commercial spaces – will be reconfigured for hotel uses and commercial space. The terrazzo floors and marble bases in the elevator lobbies on the upper floors will be retained and possibly covered with carpet in such a way to not harm the terrazzo and marble.

–The existing wood trim in each lobby will be retained, repaired and repainted. The elevator doors will be retained, repaired and refinished. The mail chute will be retained throughout the building.

–The remainder of each floor, originally built for office spaces and changed over the years, will be reconfigured for hotel use.

–The existing stairs will be retained; two new egress stairs shall be installed per the enclosed plans.

–All new mechanical and electrical systems will be installed.

–The exterior brickwork, stonework and terra cotta will be retained, cleaned and repaired; new steel and glass canopies will be installed at both the primary and secondary first floor entrances.

–The existing historic storefront transoms will stay, and damaged or missing transoms will be replaced in-kind.

–Existing plate glass storefront windows will be replaced with new glazing; new lighting and signage will be installed.

–New safety railings will be installed at the terraces on the 14th and 15th floors; all roofs will be replaced with a modified bitumen roof system.

Baughn said restoration of the iconic building is important for Meridian, not only from a historical standpoint, but from a cultural and economic viewpoint as well.

“This is the icon of Meridian,” Baughn said. “Even as far away as the interstate, this is what you see. For downtown Meridian, this has the potential to be a real instigator of development and redevelopment of downtown — bringing life back in a way that it hasn’t been here since the 1960s and ‘70s.”

Baughn said the team went through the same process during the restoration of another historic building, the King Edward Hotel in Jackson.

“That project did the same thing for downtown Jackson,” she said. “That end of Capitol Street was really dead before the King Edward reopened. Now, it’s got restaurants and there’s a lot of life there.”

The Courtyard by Marriott/Threefoot is Tampa’s second hotel in Meridian, with the Fairfield Inn & Suites off U.S. Highway 11/80 being the first one.

About The Threefoot Building

The historic building has dominated Meridian’s skyline since the 1930s. When completed in 1930, the 16-story building was the tallest in Mississippi. The Threefoot Building and Jackson’s Standard Life Building had the same architect, C.H. Lindsey of Jackson, along with Frank Fort of Meridian.

The Threefoot family (German immigrants who had Anglicized their name from Dreyfuss, which means three feet in German) constructed the building to house and operate its Threefoot Brothers Wholesale Company. It also housed Threefoot Realty and a number of smaller businesses, along with doctor and business offices during the 1940s-1960s.

The building is a great example of Art Deco architecture, with classic setbacks and polychrome terra cotta accenting the first-floor granite water table and the upper-floor spandrels and parapets. The building also boasts an ornamental Art Deco lobby decorated with marble flooring and wainscoting, plastered cast walls and ceilings, and etched bronze panel elevator doors with decorative dial indicators above each elevator.

The Great Depression put the Threefoot store out of business, but the Threefoot Building continued in operation under various owners. By the 1990s, the shift in development from downtown to suburban areas left it mostly vacant. Several redevelopment plans over the years fell through.

Since 2013, the Threefoot Preservation Society has worked to clean up the building and raise public awareness through tours and events.

It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and designated a Mississippi Landmark in 2008. The Meridian City Council approved a final agreement for the sale of the building in October 2015.

 

View more photos of the Threefoot Building taken by the Miss. Dept. of Archives and History:  

https://www.apps.mdah.ms.gov/Public/prop.aspx?id=16641&view=facts&y=1160