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The owners of a historic Pearl District building have applied to the Portland Bureau of Development Services for a pre-application conference to discuss renovation plans. Jonathan Heppner of Portland-based Lever Architecture on Dec. 5 applied for a Type III Historic Resource Review for plans to update the Ballou & Wright Company Building at 327 N.W. 10th Ave.

The 94-year-old, five-story, 60,000-square-foot structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It’s constructed of reinforced concrete with brick detailing, and features a two-story elevator tower at its northwest corner.

An employee at Heritage Investment Corp., the company that submitted paperwork for the property to be added to the national register, called the building 鈥渙ne of the best-preserved large-scale, loft-type warehouses in the city; one 鈥� distinguished by the quality of its exterior finish of sand grey brick on street elevations and its detailing in general. The square corner sprinkling tank and elevator tower at the northwest corner of the warehouse, also finely detailed, is a distinguishing and increasingly rare feature locally.鈥�

Plans submitted to the city indicate that in addition to the renovation, developers are proposing construction of a new 3,200-square-foot rooftop penthouse and connected deck.

Heppner’s plans also indicate that the facade of an adjacent one-story building annex just south of the Ballou & Wright building will be part of the renovation. According to the 1987 application filed with the United States Department of the Interior to place the Ballou & Wright building on the national register, the annex is accessible from the main structure and was built at the same time, but is considered a non-contributing structure.

The historic building was designed by architecture firm Sutton and Whitney for use by the Ballou & Wright Co., which was one of Portland’s leading wholesalers of bicycles, motorcycles and car parts from 1901 鈥� when it relocated to Portland from Montana 鈥� until the company closed in 1960.