A four-story corner building faced in light stone, its top story carried as a row of round-arched windows in a continuous arcade beneath a bracketed cornice. The floors below held rectangular windows grouped between shallow pilasters, with projecting bay windows along the principal elevations. A rounded corner bay rose above the roofline into a domed cupola that marked the entrance at the intersection.
The Young Men's Christian Association acquired the lot at Grand and Franklin Avenues in 1894, funded in part by a $5,000 bequest from the estate of Sarah Collier. Construction began in 1896, and the new central branch was completed in 1898, replacing the association's earlier headquarters at Eleventh and Locust Streets, which the May 1896 tornado had damaged. The association later concentrated its downtown operations in a new building at 1528 Locust Street, completed in 1926. The Grand and Franklin building was afterward demolished, and the corners of the intersection were cleared. Its architect has not been identified.
