Compass Bank being razed within month
Jan. 25, 2018 - Auburn, Ala.
Toomer's Corner will soon look dramatically different as the Compass Bank building will be razed within the month to be replaced by a three-story, red brick building.
The building, located in the heart of downtown Auburn on the corner of Magnolia Avenue and College Street, has a long history. Parts of it have been around since 1899. Construction in the mid-1900s gave the building the shape that residents see today.
James Haygood, a local attorney and former Auburn mayor, remembers having an office in the corner building from 1959 to 1972.
“While I was there, from my office wall over to College Street, they gutted the whole building,” said Haygood. “There were a lot of construction noises for a year or two.”
In the early 1950s, when Haygood was a student at Auburn University, there were several small businesses in what was then called the Thomas Building. He said there was a shoe shop, a sandwich shop and Burton’s Bookstore.
Behind the building, there used to be a boarding house, which had rooms upstairs and offered meals.
The boarding house was torn down and replaced with a parking lot. Shortly after, the Thomas Building was renovated, and The First National Bank moved in. This space would later become Central Bank, which then became Compass Bank.
Haygood laughed at some of the building’s quirks.
“It had an elevator shaft, but not an elevator,” he said with a smile. “My clients, young and old, would have to climb a couple sets of stairs, and they complained mightily about that.”
He added that he also had a hard time talking to clients over the sound of jackhammers on steel during the building's renovations in the 1950s.
Despite that, Haygood said he remembers having a bird’s-eye view of Magnolia Avenue and College Street. He also said he liked that the parking lot made the building accessible.
Today, some parts of the building are more than a century old. It would be as much work to upgrade it as it would be to rebuild it, said Bill Noll of The Thomas Building Company LLC.
Noll is a partner of The Thomas Building Company, which owns the Compass Bank property, and is the great-grandson of John Thomas, who owned property in the area in the 1800s.
Demolition of the Compass Bank building will begin sometime next month, said Noll, and construction of the new building will last about 10 months.
Haygood said he remembers a time when buildings couldn’t have commercial and residential space within the same building. New developments around downtown Auburn, such as the purpose-built student housing development Evolve, have first-floor commercial space with floors of residential units above.
“Those of us who remember Auburn as a village and small shops and such as that … we just haven’t gotten used to having shadows cast by buildings,” Haygood said.
The new Compass Bank building will be three stories tall. The first two floors will house the bank, and the third floor will be luxury apartments.
“I expect it would be either retired people that are maybe visiting professors, or maybe even if a company comes here a lot, this might be a company apartment where their people stay when they’re in Auburn,” Noll said.
The building will have red brick, similar to other buildings around downtown Auburn. The parking lot behind Compass Bank will be closed during construction. While the building is being torn down, Noll said he anticipates the closure of one lane on College Street.
This story was an assignment I did for The Auburn Villager.