1877, 1880, 1892
The two buildings, 135 Washington Avenue North and 121-123 Washington Avenue North, have been combined on the interior to make one building with two facades. The 135building was completed in 1877, at the corner of Washington Avenue North and Second Avenue North. Considered to be the second oldest surviving building in the warehouse district, it was designed in the Italianate style typical of the era. Architecturally, the structure features a red brick façade with rusticated stone trim and a bracketed cornice, along with tall windows on the upper floors and a cast-iron column storefront at street level.
The neighboring building, 121-123 Washington Avenue North, was constructed in 1879-1880. The 121-123 Washington building was built in the Queen Anne style and housed a variety of commercial tenants. The building has a four-story red brick edifice embellished with extensive limestone trim, including a prominent blind arch over the central third-floor windows, and a richly corbelled brick cornice along the roofline. There was an addition to the building constructed in 1892 along Second Avenue North, which now operates as a separate retail space.
The building at 135 Washington Avenue North was built to house a wholesale grocery business for one of Minneapolis’s pioneer businessmen, Anthony Kelly, and was occupied by Anthony Kelly & Company, a firm named after and closely associated with its founder. Kelly, an early settler who arrived in Minneapolis in 1858, was considered both a pioneer in the city’s wholesale grocery trade and a prominent civic figure. He operated from this location for two decades until his death in 1898, after which the building continued to house wholesale grocery operations under different management well into the twentieth century.
At its peak, Anthony Kelly Wholesale Grocery operated across Minnesota, the Dakotas, northern Wisconsin, and Montana and employed over fifty people. The building’s location would have been ideal for wholesale enterprises due to access to rail lines that proliferated in the neighborhood.
The neighboring building at 121-123 Washington Avenue North, constructed two years later, was developed by Charles C. Schultz. In its early years, local newspapers referred to the structure as the “Schultz Block” or “Schultz Building.” The building was originally split among multiple tenants, with annual rent set at approximately $3,000. Early occupants included a diverse range of businesses. furniture dealers, paper manufacturers, candy makers, liquor wholesalers, and billiard table agencies.
The building endured a series of serious fires in its early decades. In 1888, a blaze tore through the fourth floor and was reported to have nearly consumed the entire structure before firefighters brought it under control. A second fire in 1890 ravaged both the third and fourth floors, again drawing headlines for its severity and the buildings narrow escape from destruction.
By the mid-twentieth century, the Warehouse District had entered a period of decline, as commercial rail usage diminished and the business core of Minneapolis shifted away from the area. The 121-135 buildings were underutilized, if not vacant, during this time.
A renaissance in the area began in the 1990s, bringing renewed interest and investment. In 1993, new life was brought to the 121-135 block with the opening of Sex World, which occupied the primary street-level frontage along Washington. The adult entertainment business operated there until 2016, when the building was sold to a developer for renovation and repositioning.
Renovations were completed over the course of 2016, and the building shifted to retail and commercial tenants. The building is, once again, a revitalized part of the Warehouse District.