Meier & Frank Building

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The Meier & Frank Building

The Meier & Frank Building is a fifteen story, glazed terra cotta building located in downtown Portland, Oregon, across from the northeast corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square. The building is the former flagship store and headquarters building for the Meier & Frank department store chain and the current home of a Macy's Department Store.

The building site is a full block bounded by SW Fifth, Alder, Sixth, and Morrison Streets. The present building was constructed in stages, starting in 1909 with major expansions occurring in 1915 and 1932. It replaces an earlier Meier and Frank store built in 1898.

The project was the first major commission for prolific Portland architect, A. E. Doyle. Although the original commission was an annex to the original building, Doyle took a trip to Chicago with the company's co-founder Sigmund Frank to survey department stores. Frank was very impressed with what he saw, and plans for the building changed into a full-block fully modern department store. Frank's death in 1910 ended those plans and resulted in the building's piecemeal construction.

The building hosted the corporate headquarters of the Meier & Frank chain. After the acquisition of Meier and Frank by May Department Stores in 1967, the chain became a division which was based out of the former corporate offices.

The interior of the building has been modernized over the years with few interior historic elements remaining. However, two noticeable exceptions to this are the Georgian Room restaurant and seasonal Santaland, both on the 10th floor (highest retail floor in the building). The historic Georgian Room has remained virtually unchanged for at least the last 50 years. Santaland, which will close after the 2005 Christmas season, is an annual holiday favorite for generations of Portland families. Santaland operates a "kiddie"-sized overhead monorail around the ceiling of Santaland (also at least 50 years old), a holiday model railroad layout and one of the most popular and authentic Santa Clauses in the Portland area.

At its peak, the store housed everything from a pharmacy to a pet store. Several delis and food vendors operated out of various levels. As demand for these services declined, the store changed focus. During the 1980s the store began to concentrate more on soft lines such as clothing, as well as small goods such as housewares. Several floors were modified to serve as corporate offices. Other floors were simply shut down and turned over to cold storage. The store was able to operate in this configuration until finally doomed by the development of the Pioneer Place mall downtown and increased competition from its stores and anchors, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom.

In 2005, the May Company was acquired by Federated Department Stores, corporate parent of Macy's and other chains. The Meier & Frank stores were renamed Macy's in 2006.

In 2006, construction began on a project to turn the top nine floors of the building into a 330- room luxury hotel called The Nines, A Starwood Collection Luxury Hotel. The former Meier & Frank store in the lower floors of the building. Will remain open until December 30, 2006. The ongoing construction and remodel will fit it's new identity as an urban Macy's department store. Which will reopen in fall of 2007.

[edit] Trivia

Clark Gable worked in the store's tie department in 1922.
The building featured the first escalator installation in Portland.
A.E. Doyle first used glazed terra-cotta in this building, resulting in his, and other firms', later use of it in many other Portland structures.
The building's construction in segments over several decades led to anomalous differences in which elevators and which stairways reached which floors.
Pneumatic tubes were used throughout the store to convey messages and money from upper to lower floors and back again. The remnants of this system can still be found in some stairwells and back areas.
The building has two primary lower levels and a third service level beneath these. The first lower level was used for retail space until the mid 1980s. The levels beneath that were used for storage and various seasonal needs.
The bank of hand-controlled elevators originally operated by store associates were closed off with the construction of new automatic elevators, but continued to function as stock elevators into the 1990's outside of public view.