Talk of the Point

I used to stand with a few other sidewalk financiers outside Mo’s grocery at Washington and West Richmond wondering just how much money was going into the old Bank of Richmond building. I even wondered if a fellow financier was right when he said, “That guy has more money than sense.”

Every day, there were fresh signs of expensive work: the demolition of the interior, the excavation, the massive rebar columns and the yards and yards of new concrete. Outside, we all saw Christophe Boucher’s briquetage, the brick-by-brick restoration of the old glazed yellow bricks.

I hadn’t yet heard about the magnificent fireplaces yet to be restored in the upstairs rooms. I hadn’t heard yet of the curved-glass, wooden windows to be custom built in Berkeley and cost two to three times more than custom windows made with ordinary flat glass, which themselves cost up to $1000 each. I hadn’t even heard yet about the towering copper cone that will sit atop the firehouse-side corner of the building, to be lighted from within and from which a flagpole will rise. All of this is to restore the building to its historic glory, as accurately as possible.

“Many things could have been done at less expense, at a lower degree of quality,” said Howe’s architect, Donald Wardlaw. “A different type of developer might compromise here and there. Mark is determined to do a good quality job. He wants to be trusted for what he will do for future clients.”

Howe insists he’ll make a buck. “It won’t be a home run. It’ll be a single,” he said. He should know. He’s a certified public accountant.

He has run the numbers, he said, and he figures he can demand the rent that will pay for all this. “Even if I spend $700,000 I’m still OK,” he said. That’s the cost of renovation, on top of the “$700,000 to $750,000″ he paid to buy the place.

Besides, he said, this is where he’ll have his office.

But all that’s his business. What will be our business in the spring or summer of 2003 will be a brand new historical monument.

When the workmen spray off the dust, and the copper cone towers over the square, the curved wooden windows and glazed yellow bricks sparkle and the flag flies, the sidewalk financiers will fade away as talk turns to the new beauty in town. Then even after the novelty fades and after this gem embeds itself in the town’s culture, new generations of Pointers will feel that it’s theirs.

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