Housing: Silos for Singles

Next to being in each other’s company, nothing appeals to young singles like doing something really different. Three Louisville real estate developers have announced a project that offers both attractions. In a neighborhood on the fringe of the downtown area, they will convert 24 huge, interconnected silos and a grain elevator into apartments for single people between the ages of 20 and 30.

The three businessmen bought a big milling plant from the Pillsbury Co. for $550,000, and the deserted 98-ft.-high silos, which once stored a million bushels of wheat, were part of the deal. At first they seemed a problem. “We thought of uses for all the buildings but-the silos,” recalls Joseph D. Travis Jr., 48, “and we knew they would be expensive to pull down.” Then Travis, remembering reports of California’s flourishing singles colonies, suggested to his partners, William C. Erwin Jr. and James E. Kavanaugh, that they could turn the silos into apartments for the young and unattached. “Everyone thought I was nuts,” says Travis.

Circular Beds. Nonetheless, he brought in Architect Jasper D. Ward, who has a reputation for imaginative renovation. Two years ago, Ward transformed Louisville’s abandoned Illinois Central Railroad station into the nostalgically appointed Actors Theater. Ward concluded that the silos could in deed be converted into twelve-story apartment buildings for an estimated cost of $2,000,000. Work will begin next January, and the first tenants are expected to move in in early 1971. Plans call for installing floors either by pour ing cement into forms at every level or by affixing prefabricated circles. Jackhammers will cut windows and outside balcony spaces in the battleship-gray walls, which are eight inches thick, and elevators will be installed inside. On completion, the silos will have 132 circular apartments, including 84 split-levels, each 23 feet in diameter. In addition, there will be 24 rectangular apartments in the adjoining grain elevator. Rents, including utilities and furnishings (even the beds will be circular), will range from $150 to $175.

Nothing to Hide. Ward does not have any grand illusions about the project’s appearance. “It will look like a bunch of silos with windows and balconies cut out every here and there,” he says. “We will do as little as possible to destroy the natural form of the silos. That’s the whole charm of the apartments.”

Though the neighborhood is undistinguished, it has the attraction of being close to the center of town. A number of prospective tenants have already sent in cash deposits for apartments. Inevitably, the local newspaper has produced a name for the singles who will move into the silos: “flour children.”