Located along Kansas City’s historic Amour Boulevard, the Interstate Flats were home to the Interstate Bakeries Corporation Headquarters from 1952 until it’s relocation to Texas in 2009. In 2013 Chicago-based developer Siliman Group seized the opportunity to extend its community revitalization efforts and purchased the property. Unlike any of the other 24 restored properties dated within the 1920s along Armour Boulevard, this building provided a unique opportunity to retrofit a historic building from the modernist movement. Placed on the National Register of Historic places, the project utilized both State and Federal Historic Preservation tax credits. Through creative use of unit mixtures and occupying the lower level, the project exceeded pro-forma requirements and achieved 39 residential units, as well as a one to one parking ratio, fitness center, and a common area lounge.
Innovative re-purposing of existing assets played a key role in the re-design—salvaging vintage glass partitions and doors, retaining key components of the existing light fixture design, restoring the solar screens, and renovating the automobile courtyard into the common area amenity spaces. The result is an elegant retrofit of a modernist structure.