Octavia Books, New Orleans, La., is in the midst of a renovation of its historic building that will more than double the size of the store and modernize the structure while maintaining its historical features. The renovation will also feature a speakeasy-style doorway between the bookstore and its neighboring café that has regular shelving and can pivot open when both businesses are open.
"It's exciting but not easy in an old building," Tom Lowenburg, who owns Octavia with his wife, Judith Lafitte, told Shelf Awareness. "It's a statement that we'll be here and continue to be doing something relevant for a long time in the future."
With the move, Octavia's retail space will grow to 4,500 square feet from 2,000, and the neighboring breakfast and lunch restaurant, Toast, will expand slightly, too. Octavia is creating two new interior doors into new space. (Most of the new space for both businesses had been occupied by a judo school and yoga school, which moved out in recent years.) While Octavia will reconfigure its current space somewhat--expanding its children's section, for example--it will "keep the current space's feel and extend it rather that replace it."
More than 100 years old, Octavia's building is a traditional commercial building on the corner, and when the renovation is complete, Octavia's main entrance will be on the corner. (It will keep its current entrance on the side.)
Construction started in August, and Lowenburg hopes it will be finished sometime this summer. For now, the sidewalk's fenced off, and there's a dumpster and storage unit outside. Octavia hopes to stay open throughout the construction, while Toast is temporarily closed.
Because the building is a historic structure and because the renovation's cost will be above a certain percentage of the building's value, everything has to be upgraded to city code. This has necessitated redoing plumbing, upgrading all electrical systems, redoing a grease trap, and redoing the driveway using permeable pavement. Among surprises was discovering a well or cistern under the basement and some kind of tank under the driveway that may have stored kerosene and required soil testing. All alterations have to be approved historically. "We're paying a lot of attention to what the building tells us," Lowenburg said. "The architect's sensitive to that."
New features include 60 solar panels, which contribute to the new building being "a very green building," Lowenburg said.
Octavia opened in 2000, and "it's time to make this move," Lowenburg said. "The end results will be fabulous."