Olympic Mills Commerce Center

Architecture Firm: 
Works Partnership Architecture
Olympic Mills Commerce Center
Project Info
Project Size (sf / site acreage): 
172,000 sf
Project Synopsis: 
The Olympic Mills Commerce Center was a cereal mill erected in the 1920s with an 8-story concrete grain elevator and a full city block floor plate at the lower 3 floors. Contained within the tower’s concrete structural bays were wood grain cribs extending up through multiple floors. In 2005, the building was purchased and reformatted to allow for multiple smaller design based tenants. Adaptation became a formal vehicle. Careful consideration was given to the nature of the concrete frame and the wood liners that made up the historic grain towers. An architecture of discreet interventions that would touch the historic building as lightly as possible was adopted. Tenant suites were arranged around a collection of open, daylit common spaces with views maintained through the floor plate reminiscent of the original open warehouse.