State-Journal.com - Prestigious address updated

Photo By State Journal/Kelly MackeyThe exterior of the McClure building gets power washed Tuesday.

Joe Dunn says it’s going to be fun putting the original charm back into downtown’s 103-year-old McClure Building.

He and his son, John Dunn, 22, both of Oldham County, are the new owners of the seven-story building at the northwest corner of St. Clair and Main streets.

Built by the McClure Realty Co. in 1906 it was “Frankfort’s first skyscraper,” according to a 1986 history book titled “Capital on the Kentucky” by Carl Kramer.

The book says the structure “exhibited a simple Chicago-style form with an Italianate bracketed cornice,” and was “one of the city’s most prestigious addresses.”

The ground floor was first occupied by R.K. McClure & Sons Dry Goods.

In 1912 the building was sold to the newly organized United American Insurance Co. and renamed the United American Building.

It also housed the offices of Taylor Distilleries, the Frankfort Woman’s Club and numerous prominent physicians, dentists and lawyers, Kramer’s book says.

J.C. Penney once occupied the lower floors as well.

Tuesday afternoon, Joe Dunn, 55, said the building over the years has lacked the love and attention it needed, and he plans to change that, along with the 34 percent occupancy.

“I enjoy preserving and restoring historic buildings that have character and were well built,” he says. “And there’s a demand for it.

“But to run a top show property, you have to keep putting money back into it.”

The exterior is currently being power washed.

“We’re cleaning it up, getting ready to paint and glaze the windows,” Dunn says. “You should see a pretty good improvement here shortly.

“My philosophy has always been if you can make the exterior look really nice and inviting, then people will want to see a room or two on the inside.”

The renovation could take up to three years, and the new owners hope the entire facility will be offices or artist studios.

“But we won’t rule out some residential units,” if that’s what the community prefers, Joe Dunn says.

He says the first new tenant is an attorney from Louisville.

Inside Tuesday, John Dunn was busy painting one of the spacious rooms on an upper floor.

“These rooms have hardwood floors, high ceilings, gigantic windows, oodles of natural light,” and splendid views of the Capitol, Old Capitol, steeples, Singing Bridge and downtown area, Joe Dunn says.

Dropped ceilings and paneled walls, which weren’t a part of the original appearance, will be torn out. Many of the original doors with large opaque windows will be restored.

“Where possible, we’re going to tear out and redo hardwood floors and see how that market goes,” Joe Dunn says. “If everybody says we’ve got to have carpet, then we will go with carpet. But I think hardwood floors will be received well.”

Ten years ago Dunn bought and renovated the 10-story Weissinger-Gaulbert Apartment Building at the corner of South Third Street and Broadway in downtown Louisville.

“That one is 106,000 square feet, and it took three years to get it done,” he says. “The McClure Building is 34,000 square feet, so I know we’ll have it done in three years, and optimistically, if all goes well in one year.”

Dunn declined to disclose what he paid for the property, saying only the investment was “considerable.” The transaction has not yet been recorded at the courthouse. Dunn purchased the building from Ai-Ling Wang of Louisville. It’s currently assessed at $520,000, according to the Franklin Çounty Property Valuation Administrator’s Office.

Dunn says he got his start in restoration working for his sister in the early 1980s.

“She was restoring a couple of old buildings in Hopkinsville, one into a restaurant and another one into Market on Main,” he says. “It was exciting and fun taking old buildings that had once been silk purses and polishing them and making them look like silk purses again.”

Dunn says he just sold the 106-unit Weissinger-Gaulbert building where his clientele was “mostly medical students, some law students, a few empty nesters and people who work downtown.

“I would have held onto it longer, but I got an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he says.

He says he owns about seven other properties in Louisville, where he grew up.

“John, my oldest son, has really worked hard on other property, and the McClure Building is kind of for him and me to do together. Hopefully this will be something I will eventually step out of and let John manage.”

Joe Dunn says the McClure Building isn’t his first commercial business in Frankfort.

“I moved to Frankfort in 1977 at the age of 23 and opened a full-service Joe’s Car Wash on East Main,” he says. “I left in 1981, but I’ve always loved Frankfort.”

He says it’s exciting to think about the restored Grand Theatre, next door to the McClure Building, opening in late summer and a new $30 million Franklin County Judicial Center being planned for downtown.

“Those are really positive signs you’re right on the cusp of things moving forward,” Dunn says. “I get the feeling people are excited we’re fixing up the McClure Building. It needed to be done. It was getting to be a little bit of an eyesore.”

There’s gratification in putting life back into a historic structure built by top-quality craftsmen, Dunn says.

“I have to like a building, the looks of it, to invest time and labor and money into it. If you try to do everything just for dollars and cents, it doesn’t work out, at least for me it doesn’t.

“I like getting to know the tenants, and I like preserving a building so another generation down the pike can come and look at it after we’re dead. And when people tell you they appreciate what you’re doing, that’s icing on the cake.”