H-board OKs plan for Palace Grocery building

The Santa Fe Historic Districts Review Board approved, with some modifications, a plan to revamp the old Palace Grocery building.

The new owner, Ted Lusher, proposed reconstructing the building portal, reroofing the building, repairing the brick coping and installing access required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The board unanimously approved those and other improvements at its Aug. 14 meeting.

However, board members expressed a preference for installing a window that resembles the plate glass window that existed on the building front facing East Palace Avenue. The proposed improvements, presented by architect Tom Lechner, called for a divided-lite window in place of plate glass, with a metal security grill over it.

Lechner agreed to board members’ suggestions that the security grill on the front window be placed inside rather than outside. Plans to install security grills on smaller windows elsewhere on the building were approved, provided the grill work was clean and straight, without flourishes.

The 50-year-old building at 853 E. Palace Ave., vacant for 11 years after the neighborhood grocery there closed, is a “contributing” structure, defined as adding to historic associations or design qualities that make a district significant. The former grocery is within the Downtown and Eastside Historic District.

Lechner said at the board meeting that he misspoke when he told The New Mexican in July that Lusher planned to turn the building into a gallery. He said it will be used as a business office and a place where some art and Western artifacts are kept and possibly sold.

The building, which was constructed in the Territorial Revival style, served as a neighborhood grocery until 2007, one of a handful of mom and pop stores around Santa Fe. The listed owner is Lusher Enterprises Inc. of Austin, Texas.