Location
Ann Arbor, MI
Original Construction
1890
Construction Cost
$300,000
Size
4,040 square feet
Completion Date
1999

Ann Arbor’s vibrant, pedestrian-oriented Main Street is packed with specialty retail shops, restaurants, and bookstores. The northern end of Main Street, however, with a concentration of banks and only two non-energetic retail businesses, was at the edge of this activity until Crazy Wisdom took over one of those two storefronts.

The new space is 17’ wide and 120’ long. The second floor, which had a tin ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows at the street and a six-foot ceiling height at the rear, had not been used for over 40 years.

The rehabilitation plan introduced a central stair into the raw space that was lit from above by a skylight. This configuration pulls shoppers through the space and upstairs where the Tea Room and Rare Books Room are located. The original tin ceiling was used as the focal point for the Tea Room. The central stair was designed with display space and room to sit at the bottom and browse a new book.

The first floor is divided in half by the stairs, specialty items are at the rear and the majority of the books are at the front. Lighting accents the merchandise, but also reminds the shopper of the former store that was a fixture of Ann Arbor since the early 1970s. In the basement level, offices and stock rooms were created with a passenger elevator accessing all three floors. The front façade of the building was restored and a new street-level façade installed. The symmetry of the façade and history of the building inspired the entrance design.

The store design is so successful that it has become a magnet for shoppers at the north end of Main Street, bringing much-desired foot traffic to this part of downtown Ann Arbor.