A two-story commercial building of red brick over a concrete frame, three storefronts wide, between the Tober-Saifer Shoe Company Building and the Tober Building. At the second story each bay holds a band of three windows, framed by brick piers edged in white terra cotta, and a terra-cotta molding forms the cornice and coping along the top. The storefronts below were rebuilt in 2002 and now hold a pub and shops under awnings and hanging signs, with 1210 lettered over the center door. At the back the concrete frame shows plainly, filled in with brick and steel-sash windows of wired and colored glass.
The J. T. Craven Engineering Company built this low row of shops in 1925, a late, modest addition to a block of tall wholesale lofts. Its original owner and first tenants have not been identified. At some point the storefronts were modernized and partly covered in black Vitrolite, as the 1986 nomination recorded. In 2001 the main tenant was Downtown Imprints, a screen-printing shop, and a 2002 remodeling stripped the later cladding as streetscape improvements came to the avenue. Farrago, a pub with videos and books, ran at 1212 from about 2003 to 2005, followed by the Hair of the Dog pub, and Allen's Bakery was preparing to open in another storefront in 2008.
