The Grove Arcade, also known as the Arcade Building or the Asheville Federal Building, is a historic commercial and residential building in Asheville, North Carolina, in its downtown historic district. It was built from 1926 to 1929, and is a

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

and Late Gothic Revival style building consisting of two stacked blocks. The lower block is a rectangular slab with rounded corners; it is capped by the second block, a two-tier set-back story. The steel frame and reinforced concrete building was designed to serve as a base for an unbuilt skyscraper. It features a roof deck with a bronze semi-elliptical balcony, molded

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

pilasters, and a

ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has ...

-like arrangement of huge ramps to the roof deck. The building occupies a full city block and housed one of America's first indoor shopping malls. It was sold to the federal government in 1943. The building housed the

National Climatic Data Center The United States National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), previously known as the National Weather Records Center (NWRC), in Asheville, North Carolina, was the world's largest active archive of weather data. Starting as a tabulation unit in New Or ...

until 1995. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1976. In 1997, the City of Asheville acquired the title to the building under the National Monument Act. The city then signed a 198-year lease with the Grove Arcade Public Market Foundation, a group founded to preserve the building's structural and historical integrity. Over the next five years, the building would be restored and reopened to the public in 2002. Today, it features shops and restaurants on the first floor, offices on the second, and residential apartments on the third through fifth floors, referred to as The Residences at Grove Arcade. E.W. Grove, developer of Grove Park Inn, wanted a "classy look to a modern palace of commercialism." The north side has

winged lion The winged lion is a mythological creature that resembles a lion with bird-like wings. Mythical adaptations The winged lion is found in various forms especially in ancient and medieval civilizations. There were different mythological adaptions f ...

s without claws, a symbol of Venice, Italy.

References

External links

* Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Tudor Revival architecture in North Carolina Gothic Revival architecture in North Carolina Commercial buildings completed in 1929 Buildings and structures in Asheville, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Buncombe County, North Carolina Historic district contributing properties in North Carolina Shopping arcades in the United States {{BuncombeCountyNC-NRHP-stub