After a day each for demolition and concrete footing work, the actual new facade framing (including actually designing the thing, since we didn't have any construction plans) took two days, finishing up yesterday afternoon. The right side of course will end up along the lines of this photo, which I've posted a million times, it seems like.
The left side, however, currently 111 E. Austin, is a bit of a moving target. Back in the early 1900's, it was "Neville's Place" which looks to me like a saloon. (In the 1870's it was a bakery, but I haven't researched its pre-Hub history extensively. Yet). When the Hub moved in from next door in 1928 the entire facade was rebricked to raise it to the level of the 113 side and put in nice display windows (in much the same way that I suspect the 113 side was gussied-up when in 1897 it went from being some sort of metal shop to a nice shoe store . Anyway, at some point later (probably late '40's, the parapet was stuccoed and the streetfront - including the clerestory windows - was tiled with black and red tile, with a striped awning. This photo is the only one I've been able to locate that shows this appearance.
Later in the '60's or '70's this was in turn covered over with brown aluminum framed windows and a white aluminum parapet.
But the appearance of the tile (as well as the big surprise that the big neon sign was still there) is shown much better from this photo taken last November immediately after the facade came down.
We chose to restore the 111 side to essentially this late '40's or '50's time period, since it matches well with the Hub outside and there are several other similar black-tiled buildings downtown. While the black tile (with red stripe) and a similar Hub-logo sign is what we have in mind (the original will likely go up high on a wall for display inside in much the same way that the Museum of American History in Washington D.C. used to display the Star Spangled Banner), unfortunately the tile was too damaged either from the attachment of later facades or from rot in the backing to save, so we had to demolish the entire facade below the stucco and reframe from scratch. The final appearance with be similar tile-wise to the picture from November (plus awning), although we have moved the door out to street level and adjusted the side walls in a bit for various reasons, including the installation of the Bo Ellis Memorial Water Faucet for use irrigating the planters that will be put in once we're done. So the vertical studs up high will be covered with tile, the opening below that are transom windows, and the streetfront door and windows are below that (hidden by the dumpster, as is the knee-wall echoing the display windows).
One step closer - hopefully by the end of the day we'll have backer board for the tile, which will close in a big chunk of the 111 side. 113 requires carpenters, so it make take a bit longer to get "in the dry" so to speak.