Property Record
214-216 N ADAMS ST
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Pireaux Building |
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| Other Name: | Associated Bank |
| Contributing: | No |
| Reference Number: | 29462 |
| Location (Address): | 214-216 N ADAMS ST |
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| County: | Brown |
| City: | Green Bay |
| Township/Village: | |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
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| Year Built: | 1903 |
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| Additions: | C. 1960 |
| Survey Date: | 19852017 |
| Historic Use: | large retail building |
| Architectural Style: | Commercial Vernacular |
| Structural System: | Unknown |
| Wall Material: | Brick |
| Architect: | |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Green Bay Downtown Historic District |
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| National Register Listing Date: | 5/13/2019 |
| State Register Listing Date: | 2/16/2018 |
| National Register Multiple Property Name: |
| Additional Information: | First floor altered with later brick panels below display windows on metal sides and sign board above windows. Previously housed Candlestick Bar and Reiser-Lee Jewelry. 2017-NRHP District Nomination Per an 1896 newspaper article, Frank Pireaux, a local brickmaker, was planning to erect a three-story building on this site. Economic conditions may have stalled these plans; available Sanborn maps indicate that this lot was vacant in 1900 and had a two-story building by 1907, with a cigar factory in the north half of the building. John Huerth’s cigar manufacturing enterprise, which occupied this building in 1907, replaced the M. H. Chase confectionary store, which moved into the new Pireau building in 1903. (Note that newspaper articles alternate spelling between Pireaux and Pireau). Today the building is used by Associated Bank, which also owns the adjacent contemporary style (mid-century modern) bank building to the south (200 N Adams). As built, this building had a symmetric façade and featured a pair of oriel windows on the second story. This arrangement persisted well into the 1950s, but sometime around 1960 the entire front façade was replaced. This newer façade was brick in an American bond pattern, with four window openings in the second story. The window openings at the sides of the second story are roughly two-thirds the width of the two openings closest to the center of the façade. Each second-story window opening, now fitted with yet more modern replacement windows, has a single stone or concrete sill. Five rows of brick separate the top of the second story windows from a narrow belt course of concrete that runs the full width of the façade. The remaining portion of the façade above this belt course is all brick. The first story was totally altered around 1990, with completely altered fenestration and the application of a stucco surface veneer. Four tile surface details were added midway between the concrete belt course and the top of the façade, likely at the same time as the first-floor alterations. Each of these square details consists of nine square tiles, centered above the second story windows. This building is generally unremarkable when considered individually, but it is one of several buildings in the district that received a completely new façade during the historic period of significance. The second story of the 1960-era façade retains a good degree of integrity. |
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| Bibliographic References: | (A) Green Bay Gazette. Green Bay, Wisconsin. 23 Mar 1896, page 5. (B) Green Bay Press-Gazette. Green Bay, Wisconsin. 17 Dec 1978, page A-6. (C) “Aerial View of Downtown Green Bay Walnut St Bridge in Lower Foreground,” Hank Lefebvre postcard, postmark 15 Aug 1966. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |