Lawrence and Chapin Iron Works Building

A Building for Many Uses

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Lawrence and Chapin Iron Works building is one of downtown Kalamazoo’s most distinguished for its unique architectural details, but also for the myriad of different businesses and activities that have utilized the North Rose Street structure over the course of a century and a half. From a Victorian-era foundry to contemporary plans to situate the building within a complex of residential apartments, the French Second Empire-style brick building continues to play a role in the evolutionary timeline of the city’s downtown.

“There is nothing else in Kalamazoo quite like this structure with its grand center pavilion and rich Second Empire details. Four stories tall and of brick construction, the Lawrence and Chapin building features round-headed windows with elaborate Italianate hoods and a complex tiled mansard roof with its ornate pavilion and dormers. Fine brackets are evidenced under the eaves and form the capitals of pilasters which give the structure a classical appearance. It is difficult to comprehend that this magnificent structure was designed as a factory; its form and function seem incongruous. It could easily be mistaken for a public building. Indeed, in 1897, the city formed a committee to study if the Lawrence and Chapin building might be suitable for use as a city hall.”

–From the Nomination Form for the NRHP

A Manufacturing Hub

Designed by local architect L.D. Grosvenor and built from 1870-1872 by local contractors Bush and Patterson,  the building’s initial use was as a foundry, erected to process pig iron into a variety of products, most of which were agricultural equipment to be sold to farmers. For three decades, upwards of 50 workers pushed out thousands of spring harrows, cultivators, reapers, and engines. The company also ran a machine shop within the factory. Unfortunately, around the turn of the century, the profitability of locally manufacturing iron products began to slacken as the need for iron switched to steel. The Yale-educated Dr. Lebeus C. Chapin had died in 1885, and William S. Lawrence incurred financial problems, leading to the dissolution of the company in the late 1890s.

The building was left unoccupied until a Chicago business man named George C. Plumber moved in the fall of 1903, converting the ground floor into the Kalamazoo Amusement Palace, a Vaudevillian dance hall that featured a large wood floor for roller skating and dancing.

The building as a site for early 20th century entertainment lasted until 1906, and by 1909, the City Rescue Mission, a religiously-based group, had moved in after the Shakespeare Company moved out. During the 1910s and early 1920s, the building served the Michigan Railway Company as the depot for interurban train cars.

Founded in 1924 by Harold J. Vermeulen, the Vermeulen Furniture Store called the building home for longer than any other commercial firm, eventually departing its downtown retail store and warehouse in 1990 for another location just south of the Milwood Neighborhood. The firm was one of the largest furniture stores in the area.

“By the time it was 10 years old, in 1934, it had taken in the entire building, occupying all five floors. It had on 15th birthday reached the size of 40,000 square feet of floor space and 15,000 square feet of storage space. The old building was renovated with new main floor display windows, and a new stairway to the basement rooms was constructed.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 31 May 1984

Arcadia Commons Project

In the late 1980s, a plan to revitalize the stretch of North Rose Street between Michigan Avenue and Kalamazoo Avenue saw new life brought to the former foundry. First of America Bank, later National City Bank, moved into the old building in the early 1990s. The bank added an additional complex of buildings (Arcadia South and Arcadia North) between the Lawrence and Chapin Iron Works Building and the Masonic Temple after the Kalamazoo Laundry Building was torn down in 1983.

In the summer of 2024, having been vacant for several years, a $32.7 million “mix-use” project named Arcadia Lofts was announced as a way to breath new life into the onetime foundry.

Written by Ryan Gage, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, June 2024