Historic preservation breathes new life into former Pieritz Bros. building

If you travel down Ridgeland Avenue in Oak Park, it’s unlikely you’ve missed the transformation of the corner of Ridgeland and South Boulevard playing out over the past two years. If you’ve been following carefully, you might have noticed not only the building’s makeover at the hands of new owner Elements Architectural Group but also the signs of new businesses breathing life into the building.

Hard to believe, but all of this progress started because Denise Scholtens just can’t stand to see a mess. A frequent customer of the building’s former, long-term tenant Pieritz Brothers, Scholtens recalled how sad she was when the office supply and stationery store closed in 2020. 

She noted that she was walking by the building and sad to see it in a derelict state. “Honestly, I kind of hate a mess,” she laughed. 

She told her husband Bill, owner of Elements, that they should buy the building for his office and rehabilitate it. The only problem was, it wasn’t for sale.

As Bill recalled it, in February 2023 “I stopped by to talk to Rick at the comic book store. He told me it was already sold to a developer. I told him I wanted to buy the building and restore it. I gave him my card and thought I’d never hear about it again.”

While walking through an airport in June he noticed that he missed several calls from the same phone number. He finally answered to find it was the building’s owner looking to make a deal.

At the time, the 13,300-square-foot building was 83% vacant. Originally built in 1923, the building officially belonged to the Scholtens on its 100th birthday.

Their first order of business was converting what had been 13 small units into six, more-usable spaces. Elements’ architectural offices took over a large portion of the South Boulevard-facing space. Two retail spaces are currently being built out facing the corner and facing Ridgeland.

Bill Scholtens said that Elements frequently works on sustainably-designed architecture projects and that bringing that into their new space was paramount. He wanted to create a model for net-zero energy rehabilitation.

“People don’t know what that means. I’ve done it six times with other projects. I wanted to offer this as a model: ‘Here’s the problems, and here’s how I’ve solved them.’”

The building is now net-zero, and Scholtens can be seen discussing some of the measures he incorporated in the space here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOf2J0xCk8

While finding a sustainable new home for his office that employs a team of 10 architects and interior designers was always a goal, Scholtens could not have predicted how excited he is to track their sustainability progress.

“One of the things I’m really, really excited about is that we’re going to crush our net zero goals,” he said. Solar edge software keeps him informed to the minute on the building’s energy expenditures. So far this year, the building has created 21.6 megahertz of energy and has used only 11.4 megahertz. 

“Those numbers will change as we move into the cooler months, but I’m pretty sure we’ll end the year energy positive,” he added.

He is as passionate about historic preservation as he is about sustainability and says that the two do not need to be in conflict. In fact, some of the building’s original features were put in place in 1923 as early forms of climate control. Pivoting transom windows allow for fresh air exchange, 4×4 prism glass provides daylighting to cut back on electrical needs, and skylights do the same.

Through the rehabilitation process, Scholtens got a crash-course in terra cotta preservation. The building’s distinctive terra cotta tiles were in need of much care and were very fragile, and in Scholtens’ words “kind of irreplaceable.”

After finding a company in Connecticut that manufactured an all-natural stone cleaning product, Scholtens undertook the painstaking process of cleaning 100 years of train soot from the fragile tile. At the end of the process, he has people asking him for advice.  “I am the terra cotta specialist now,” he said. 

While Denise Scholtens has a day job as a biostatistician, she worked alongside Bill to envision the role that the building could play in the community. 

 “Living here on the east side of Oak Park, there’s not a lot of walkable places,” she said. “Along with Bill’s studio, we want to provide restful places for life together. We’re looking for a reason for the community to come back to this space.”

Their flagship corner unit is already rented out to Three-Fold bakery, which will offer coffee and croissants. The Scholtens are in talks with potential other businesses, and hope to turn the second-floor apartments into Airbnb units to allow Oak Parkers to have family come and visit.

 “We want to further the hospitality mission,” Bill Scholtens said. “This building is meant to be used. All the better if we can share it with a greater number of people.”

He says that he and Denise love the design of restaurants and spaces they see in the city, adding, “We’re dying for places like that in Oak Park. We just want to raise and elevate the whole quality and standards of Oak Park.”

With their investment in the corner of Ridgeland and South, they hope to be well on their way to achieving that goal. One of Bill’s clients recently offered the highest praise of the space, saying, “This is going to change the culture of Oak Park.”