Litzinger & South Hanley Rd.
Brentwood, MO
Until they recently removed the sign, the above building was used as the distribution office for Panera Bread. Surely many companies have occupied the building since it was built in 1954, but the graphics Panera uses to project their image jibed well with the simple, angular entrance canopy. It gives this building its sole bit of personality.
Other than some plaster shredding from water damage (above) on the underside of the canopy, the entrance is in great shape, modestly modern and the only inviting sight within the Hanley Industrial Complex.
Then the Panera sign came down, the windows were boarded up (above) and some work was done to the roof. They’ve been working rather slowly, but on my last pass by, they had finally installed new windows along the Litzinger-facing side. But what I haven’t seen is work crews touching that canopy.
Does that mean the easiest item to repair is being saved for last? Or are they getting everything in place before they hack it off? Considering the wholesale upset of the entire stretch of Hanley between Hwy 40 and Manchester, odds are it’s getting whacked, because nothing with any design merit is no longer allowed in that area. So just in case I drive by again to see it gone, I wanted record of it before it was too late.
wow blast from the past. I used to work in that building back when it was still the bread co. headquarters. Funny thing back then the original owners of bread co. were still working there. I had just started working there from Boston where the company that they had sold it to was from. They had some really nice offices with fine office furniture and bread co. memorabilia all over the place. It was nice. It took us about a year after they left to turn it into a cubicle tenament with of if not two of us crammed into every office. We later moved to Webster Groves and a couple years later to our spot on Clayton next to the esquire theater. We have another office in Brentwood and one in Boston. Time flys.
I have a bunch of fond memories of that office on Hanley. Two that stick out: The OJ verdict (everyone remembers where they were) everyone huddled around a tv in the conference room. The other was the first time we figured out how to make the Asiago Cheese bagel. When we brought it over there you would have thought the roof was going to come off the place. It was an instant hit.
That building was later occupied by the original owners of the bread co. once again as they became franchisees in Ohio and Denver.
thanks for the memories
sd
Wasn’t that building pretty heavily damaged by a storm a couple months ago? The same storm – in a fit of poetic justice – also damaged the entrances to the Maplewood Commons Wal-Mart.