Koli owns both the Northside Grill and the historic Anson Brown Building next door at the corner of Broadway and Swift. It’s the oldest commercial building in Ann Arbor–so old, Koli points out, that when it was built, “there was no electricity, no central heating.”
Anson Brown came to Ann Arbor after working on the Erie Canal with a dream of making Lower Town, just north of the Huron River, the town center. He named Broadway and Wall streets after famous streets in New York City, dammed the river to create power for industry, and, at a time when Main St. was still lined with low wooden buildings, built the three-story brick block for his office and retail space. But Brown died of cholera just two years later, and without his leadership Lower Town never became an important center–which is probably why his building survived.
Although Koli appreciates the historic importance of his building, he insisted on being left out of the Broadway Historic District, preferring to update it without having to follow legally imposed guidelines. For instance, he is making the windows usable by putting inserts into the existing frames. He was afraid that if he took the frames out to repair them, it would disturb the brickwork around them. He says that some historic districts allow this, but others don’t.
Mason William Suchman rebuilt the building’s parapets, worn down after 182 years exposed to the weather. Elsewhere, Koli is letting the exterior paint gradually chip off: He believes that painting is bad for old brick, because it doesn’t allow it to breathe, but that removing it isn’t a good idea either, because it is softer than modern brick. Koli plans to let nature take its course and periodically repoint the mortar in areas that need it.
Koli’s biggest change is making the top floor into a modern, three-bedroom apartment, with marble sills and granite kitchen tops. The attic, which tenants will be able to use for storage, is in stark contrast, with its exposed hand-hewn thirty- or forty-foot beams. They were made from first-growth oak trees cut down when Lower Town was being settled.
Koli also owns the attached buildings on either side, the Kellogg Building on the north and the Sic Transit Cycle shop facing Swift. All three are getting, or have gotten, new furnaces and new windows. The newer Sic Transit building is getting an exterior coating to protect its cinder-block walls, and the other two brick buildings are getting new roofs.
Koli has applied for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, which would qualify him for tax credits that would offset part of the cost. But he says the renovation doesn’t depend on them. “I’m doing it right with no government handouts,” he explains. “If I do get it [the register listing], it will be the cream on top.”
