Historic Barber Building: Huge Demand For Downtown Living

JOLIET, IL - For the past 30 months, Joliet real estate investor Mike Petry toiled away, rehabilitating the vacant Barber Building at 68 North Chicago Street into loft apartments. This month, all 35 of his loft apartments were ready for occupancy.

Every apartment unit is rented out. His tenants have moved into the five-story building during the past two weeks.

The loft apartments consist of one bedroom and two bedroom units. Rent ranges between $900 and $1,000 a month, Petry said.

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This week, Joliet Patch interviewed Petry. He said that in addition to his loft apartments, the ground-level floor includes space for retail and professional offices. Both areas inside the Barber Building are currently available for occupancy and customization.

Petry said he was ecstatic with how the project turned out. Two units are rented out to police officers, one active duty and another who is retired.

"We're one-hundred percent rented," Petry told Joliet Patch. "We've got really solid people in various types of professional roles, distribution, health care, education and government jobs. There's a market for people who want to live downtown in a high-quality historical building."

The limestone Barber Building is also showcased in one of Joliet historian Robert Sterling's books about the city's rich architecture history. The building dates back to around 1887.

The building features marble staircases. World-famous Chicago architect Daniel Burnham was involved in the building's redesign during the early 1900s, which added two more floors.

Around the early 1900s, the Joliet Dry Goods Company and Citizens Bank occupied the primary space on the lower levels of the limestone building. Several of the original bronze and copper vaults are still inside the building.

A write-up in the Joliet history book indicates that in 1888, "local reporters described it as the handsomest store in the state. It was also one of the first structures in town with the elevator."

As of this month, about three dozen tenants are now occupying levels two, three, four and five.

"This was as much of a preservation and restoration as it was a conversion," Petry explained. "It's an incredible thing for the city that we did."

Reflecting on the completion of the Barber Building's loft apartments, Petry said he wanted to thank the city of Joliet's building department "for going above and beyond in allowing this building to be preserved while being converted."

For the downtown's ongoing revitalization to take the next major step forward, Petry said the city needs to fund the much-talked plans to build a community-square plaza park across from the Rialto Square Theatre property, also on North Chicago Street.

Last April, the former State's Attorney's Office was bulldozed. The Joliet City Council has reviewed conceptual drawings, but so far, the city council has not approved funding to build the plaza.

"The city needs to do that plaza," Petry said. "They need to get that in. That is the next key step for downtown Joliet to evolve."