For nearly 30 years, the tallest building in Midtown, a majestic-looking early 20th century Beaux-Arts structure towering six stories above the skyline, stood vacant, slowly deteriorating from neglect, weather and vandalism. Parts of two floors were collapsing.
This month, the 1908 Commercial Bank and Trust Co. building at 1222 N. 3rd St., known as the Furlow Building, opens as 24 apartments – 20 one-bedroom and four two-bedroom. It follows more than six months of demolition and renovation work.
“Nothing in the building was salvageable except the copper façade and the brick exterior,” said developer Dan Deitchman, giving a tour of one of the modern, upscale apartments with a view of Broad Street Market across the way.
The entire interior was demolished, including the floors, and rebuilt. The badly damaged granite fluted column façade on the ground level was replaced with a handsome concrete block façade.
“This was the most challenging of all the buildings we’ve renovated and we’ve renovated dozens,” he said.
Along with partner GreenWorks Development, Deitchman spent $5 million – half of which was a $2.5 million grant from the state’s Redevelopment Capital Assistance Program – to restore the 21,500-square-foot building.
Deitchman specializes in restoring historic buildings around the region. His biggest project, restoration of the 1927 Gothic-style Riverview Manor on North Front Street, sold every one of its 76 condo units shortly after it opened three years ago.
COBA, the new name of the Furlow building (using the first two letters from its original name, Commercial Bank), is a welcome relief to Midtown residents and historic preservationists who worried it would one day go the way of the wrecking ball.
“That building was severely deteriorated due to neglect,” said David Morrison, president of Historic Harrisburg Association. “It’s Midtown’s most prominent architectural landmark.”
Morrison and HHA had long sought to see the building saved after the city’s redevelopment authority acquired it 15 years ago when the last owner abandoned it. Just cleaning debris from three decades of neglect was a monumental task, Deitchman said.
HHA is encouraged by the restoration of the building because its resource center, also formerly a bank built in 1893 and next door to COBA, is going through the process of seeking funds for restoration and renovation.
Morrison praised the developer’s work on COBA. He said Deitchman found clever ways to reconstruct an interior that once had 10 luxury apartments with limited views to units that have views of the Susquehanna River, the Capitol Dome, Midtown and Uptown, depending on what quadrant of the building the unit is located.
“As a piece of architecture, it was always conspicuous by its abandonment,” Morrison said. “Now it will contribute to the life and the economy.”
COBA’s ribbon cutting is Nov. 1, the same day the building gets its first tenant, said Deitchman. And once again, like the restored Riverview Manor, there is significant interest in COBA from potential residents.
“Some people are already reserving certain units without ever seeing them,” he said.
