Once home to a carriage factory, this 1888 downtown Wichita building is getting new life

Marketer-turned-downtown-investor Bruce Rowley and some business partners are renovating another building in the city’s core, this time to the north of Intrust Bank Arena, and it’s another one with some fun history.

The group purchased the approximately 10,000-square-foot building at 114 N. St. Francis.

“It is right at the end of Gallery Alley,” Rowley said.

That was part of the attraction to the building, much of which had either been warehouse space or empty for years. The entrance to Gallery Alley is off of Douglas just down from the Old Mill Tasty Shop across from Naftzger Park.

It’s a bustling part of downtown, and Rowley and his partners plan two house-sized apartments on top of the building and space for two businesses below, one of which is already there.

Wizard’s Asylum co-owner Brian “Bam” Hunter had asked Rowley if he had any space for rent.

“I asked him if he had imagination,” Rowley said.

Hunter’s wife, Lora, was skeptical, but Hunter and his business partner, Chase Fishel, saw the potential and moved the south Wichita store to the former warehouse space, renaming it Wizard’s Alley.

In addition to converting the back of the building, Rowley and his partners paved a parking lot back there.

“The whole area behind there was basically a dirt, dust and mud show,” Rowley said.

“Just in the few short months we’ve been there, we have new customers,” Hunter said. “We get people all the time now from out of town that we didn’t have before.”

The business, which he called a geek store and tavern with food and drinks, started in 1994 as Agents of Comics.

Today, it has new and vintage comics, cards, hobby supplies, a variety of games for sale and use for free at the business, drinks, sandwiches and what Hunter called “Wichita’s OKest pizza.”

The move fulfills a dream for him.

“I just always as a kid wanted to run a business downtown.”

His grandmother used to arrange window displays at the Macy’s store downtown.

“I just always was in love with downtown.”

He said he’s excited about efforts to do more in the area. As a business owner, he likes all the shopping, dining and other activity there.

Though the store had a loyal clientele in south Wichita, it didn’t have the same opportunities there as it does now, Hunter said. That’s why he was willing to take a chance on 114 N. St. Francis.

“I like looking at spaces and thinking about what they can be as opposed to what they are.”

Rowley said there’s some more work that needs to happen at the 3,600-square-foot front of the building this summer, and the goal is to have a new tenant — he’s still looking for one — by September.

Upstairs, there will be two three-bedroom, two-bath apartments. One will be 1,800 square feet, and the other will be 1,650 square feet.

“So quite large,” Rowley said. “We really wanted to do something very unique and not just stick eight tiny studio apartments up there.”

There’s also a 500-square-foot shared patio.

Rowley said he can picture the apartments being ideal for empty nesters or people will older children.

“These will make amazing apartments,” he said. They’re “unusual for downtown.”

With more medical students coming downtown with the new Wichita Biomedical Campus, Rowley said another option is three students sharing three bedrooms.

There are large windows, 14-foot ceilings and lots of light. There also are original wood floors and brick walls.

“We really tried to keep those historic elements and character in there,” Rowley said.

He said the old-style lumber in the space “takes my breath away because it’s so different.”

Everything else is new.

Rowley and various partners have renovated or are renovating a number of downtown buildings for new uses.

That includes the FireWorx building at 500 S. Topeka, a property at 420 S. Emporia, another at 535 S. Emporia, a building at 400 S. Commerce, the ArenaPointe building at 400 S. Emporia and the new Arnold apartments at 333 E. English.

The latest building is called Washburn Apartments, after the carriage factory owner.

Rowley didn’t know the history of the building before he and his partners bought it, but he came to learn it dates to at least 1888 when J. N. Washburn’s Carriage Repository opened there.

An October 1904 Wichita Eagle story upon Washburn’s death called him a prominent Wichitan — one of the oldest residents of the city that was founded in 1870 — and a pioneer in the carriage business in the area.

Rowley already was enjoying getting a sense of history at the building when workers who were tearing out a ceiling discovered chalk signatures of carriage factory workers from 1907 on the floor joists.

Though Rowley rushed down to look at the signatures, they had to be covered up again with a two-hour fire wall.

“They are sealed in history yet again.”