Former Kress 5 and Dime Store in Birmingham AL

S.H. Kress and Company Building, Birmingham Alabama

Date added: January 20, 2025

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The S. H. Kress & Company building is an example of high style 1930's architecture, representing a transition between the Moderne or Art Deco style, and the International Style. It combines streamlined Moderne motifs with a functionalist approach to merchandising.

The new methods of merchandising and advanced technical standards employed by the Kress Brothers affected the design of their stores. High volume/low cost, direct-from-manufacturer retailing required that the warehouse be located directly above the retail floors and accessible by service elevators. The building utilized the latest in technological improvements, necessitating a large penthouse to house the extensive mechanical systems.

The relationship of the Kress Building to the Loveman's Building and the Woolworth Building creates a highly unified urban composition at the major retail intersection of Birmingham. Exhibiting a similarity of style, scale and materials, they create a significant concentration of Art Deco buildings.

Designed by Edward F. Sibbert of NYC, the Kress corporate architect, it was built by Days and Sachs of Birmingham at a cost of $750,000. The smooth surface of the glazed terra cotta tile wraps around the curved corner, emphasizing the dynamic quality of the facade. The banded windows indicate the horizontal nature of the warehouse floors, while the vertical fenestration on the 19^th Street facade expresses the location and directionality of the elevator core.

This was the third of the S. H. Kress stores in downtown Birmingham. The 1889 store at 1914 2^nd Avenue North was the first of 10 Kress stores in the Southeast and was followed by the 1914 store at 1910 2^nd Avenue North. Referred to by Russ Kress as his "monument to Birmingham" the 3^rd Avenue store was a prototype, a duplicate of the larger Kress Store in NYC at Fifth Avenue and 39^th Street. It incorporated the Kress name as an integral part of the architecture to express the standardized corporate image of a national chain.

The Kress Building is to be incorporated in a revitalization scheme that includes the Burger Phillips Building. This will return the buildings, which have been vacant for several years, to their original intended retail use and include the compatible adaptive use of the upper levels for offices. This innovative project is significant in preserving the architectural and historical importance of the buildings, without which the economic viability of the structures would be subject to less sympathetic development pressures.

Building Description

The S. H. Kress & Company Building occupies the corner of 3^rd Avenue and 19^th Street in the midst of the downtown Birmingham retail district. A 3 x 5 bay steel frame horizontal structure with concrete slab floors, it rises four stories over a double basement.

The facade, clad in a veneer of white glaze-finished terra cotta tile, wraps around and steps back at the curved corner. The tile veneer is laid in a stack bond above the convex reverse-fluted piers of the ground floor, emphasizing the planar quality of the curtain wall. The horizontal banding around the windows, vertical stripping on the 19^th Street facade and the narrow coping are terra cotta tile. The industrial steel sliding sash windows are double-hung, two over two with horizontal mullions.

The storefront consists of travertine paving, a granite bulkhead or base, bronze-framed polished plate glass display windows, and bronze awning hangers. Curved glass is used to recess the doorways, which are sheltered by curvilinear scalloped marquees. The three aluminum double doors, though set in the original bronze doorframes, are not original to the building. The Kress corporate logo is integral with the design, the signage being incorporated at the roof, over the doorways, on the facades, and by the corner neon sign standard.

The interior consists of two merchandising floors and four floors of warehouse space. The ground-level retail space is 25' high and unbroken except by structural columns. The upper levels are open with some temporary partition walls, as is the mechanical penthouse above.

The interior treatment of the main level consists of stylized Art Deco ornament. The plaster ceiling features geometric bas-relief decoration of flat medallions and diamond patterns. The wood-paneled and plaster walls include convex reverse-fluted pilasters, finned louvered grilles, and plaster name plaques above the store windows. However, the original zebrawood casework has been removed, the display windows altered and the clerestory windows blocked. The ever-textured terrazzo floor is gridded with brass stripping. Connecting the major retail floor with the basement are 2 major stairways of marble with bronze handrails and a scalloped ceiling motif.