Syndicate Trust Building

Rising sixteen stories, the Syndicate Trust Building is sheathed entirely in cream glazed terra cotta worked into unusually dense ornament. A two-story base carries a frieze of foliate scrollwork and cartouches beneath a projecting cornice of paired scroll brackets, dentils, and lion-mask keystones. The shaft is divided into vertical bays by pilaster strips, each window spandrel set with a molded cartouche, and the upper floors open in a giant arcade of round-arched windows. An elaborate crowning entablature — modillions, an arcaded attic, and a run of anthemion cresting — caps the tower. The corner entrance is framed in gray granite with a fretwork transom grille.

The sixteen-story Syndicate Trust Building was completed in 1907 at Tenth and Olive Streets to the design of Harry Roach. It housed the Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney department store, its original major tenant, until the store closed in 1967, after which the building stood largely vacant. In 1912 it was joined internally to its ten-story neighbor to the east, the Century Building, which was demolished in 2004 for a parking garage. Between 2006 and 2008 the Syndicate Trust Building was rehabilitated as a mixed-use development — 94 condominiums, 84 apartments, ground-floor retail, and parking — and marketed as The Syndicate. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.