March-April 2026.
Smith Brothers Hardware, once a hardware wholesaler, is now one of Columbus’s better-known adaptive reuse projects. Its lofty parapet and classic rooftop water tower can be seen for miles across the city, most frequently off I-670 or 4th Street. A solid example of 1920s industrial architecture, many historic features remain on the exterior today.
Smith Bros. Hardware is located at 580 North 4th Street in the Italian Village neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by I-670 to the north, south, and east, and 4th Street and a few remaining industrial buildings to the west.
History
Historic photo of the company in its Chestnut Street location. (A Walk with the Relic on YouTube)
Smith Brothers Hardware was founded in Delaware, Ohio in 1878 by brothers John H. Smith and Thomas F. Smith. They incorporated the business and moved to Columbus in 1891, their earliest location being at 39-41 East Spring Street. As the business grew, they moved again to 48-50 West Spring Street in 1896. In 1905, the hardware company moved once more to 32-40 West Chestnut Street.
Historic perspective drawing of the building. It looks almost foreign in its original context. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
In 1926, the existing warehouse building was built, replacing another industrial building on the site used by the N. R. Newdick Machine Shop. Its architect is unknown, but it is an example of the solid industrial architecture of the time, with a concrete and steel frame and 18” thick brick walls. The site, originally next to the Big 4 railroad, was deliberately placed to take advantage of rail transportation. The small annex to the east of the warehouse was built as a pipe storage and staging area for trains.
Snippet of the 1921-1961 Sanborn map, which shows the building as it was built and stands today. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
Anecdotally (from a Facebook comment), Smith Bros. Hardware was a wholesaler that supplied small-town hardware stores, where salesmen took orders in a given area and the items were shipped to the stores via rail and later by truck. The brothers died within the following years, and a new owner purchased the company in 1932, maintaining the name.
1997 photo of the building immediately prior to renovations. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
No sources mention it, but smaller hardware businesses became less common through the last few decades of the 20th century with the expansion of big-box hardware stores like Home Depot and Menard’s. After being sold by a later owner in 1981, Smith Bros. went bankrupt in 1983, and the warehouse was abandoned afterwards. (The former owner of the business still owned the property.) It burned in 1994, but the building’s structure was unaffected.
In 1997, the former Smith Bros. warehouse was renovated by Moody Nolan into offices and an event space known as North 4th Corridor. This process required repairing the corroded windows and cutting large openings into the reinforced concrete floor plates. It won the James B. Recchie Design Award in 1999 and an AIA Honor Award in 2000. A rooftop patio, planned since the 1997 renovation, was built in 2017 by Archall Architects.
Photos
An earlier shot of the building I got from the north when visiting St. John’s and Engine House No. 4’s site.
Ironically, Smith Bros. actually ended up being one of the most difficult buildings for me to get to. Two pertinent bits of information about me that shed more light on my photography habits are that I am frugal, and that I prefer to walk if I can. In order to avoid the obscene price-gouging of downtown Columbus parking and clear up the eternally choked High Street, I took the bus for my many trips downtown for photos, since as an Ohio State student I got free bus fares with my tuition. However, to reach Smith Bros. from downtown, that meant having to trudge up north along the 4th Street viaduct, across the railroad. (I later discovered parking on 4th Street further north in Italian Village is free, but oh well.)
I never took a picture of my awaiting climb, so here’s a crappy Google Maps snapshot, with Smith Bros in the background.
In theory, this bridge is walkable. In practice, however, it was a harrowing affair. Cars flew by at 50+ miles an hour, undoubtedly gaping at whatever fool had the gall to walk on a bridge built for the automobile. (For the record, I drove up that bridge very frequently, and I don’t think I ever saw a single pedestrian.) Only one side of the bridge has a sidewalk, so I kept to the left the whole time. I will concede that convenient holes were wire-cut out of the fencing every so often, which allowed me to stick my lens out and get some nice shots of downtown, the convention center, and the railroad. The bridge also granted me a good vantage point for some level detail shots of Smith Bros.’ architectural details (usually I have to crane my neck up).
Reaching the part where the bridge begins to curve, here’s a nice shot of downtown:
Right click → “Open image in new tab” → zoom in
From left to right, I spy Renaissance Columbus, Law & Finance Building, the Ohio Statehouse’s cupola, the Franklin County Courthouse, Rhodes Tower, the Huntington Center, Atlas Building, LeVeque Tower, Nationwide Plaza, and the old convention center. These are all buildings I have posts of in the works.
A similar view in context of the railroad tracks, which divide Italian Village from downtown:
Same thing, with the I-670 off-ramp:
Isn’t this level view so much better than the odd angles of my normal shots of building tops?
Each corner of the building ends in an exaggerated pier, with a raised parapet and a very subtle projection from the main walls (about the width of a single course of brick). This is pretty indicative of the middle ground between the more decorated Victorian industrial buildings and the windowless steel sheds of today--functionalism still reigned supreme, but there was wiggle room for a little architectural flourish such as this.
I stretched my telephoto lens as far as it would go, practically extending into the paths of the cars still roaring past me, to get this next shot:
There is a little concrete disc embedded into the brickwork, the only purely ornamental detail in this shot. The brick itself, all shades of dark brown and purple, is laid in a ribbed pattern. This was a common method to achieve a bit of texture and visual interest that was also integral to the building’s construction.
Very blue water tower:
Cheugy sign off of 4th Street, with out-of-scale lettering and an excessive number of lamps:
I like the braced support pillars, and the lamps are contextual to the site’s industrial past. Just knock all but three off or use an indirect lighting system, then shrink the letters, and this would look a lot better.
A nice oblique view from 4th and Goodale:
I wonder why one sign uses a sans-serif font and the other has a larger serif font.
The 4th Street facade:
I wish I could go back in time, pick myself up by the head like a Mii, and turn myself a degree to the right. I frequently take pictures thinking I cooked, and then looking back, there’s some glaringly obvious error. At least it’s been angling and positioning of the camera lately versus framing of the image itself.
Impenetrable, stalwart brick versus dematerialized window openings:
I know I say it every time I talk about industrial architecture, but this repetitive, “honest” method of design inspired Modern architecture. Just by looking at this facade, it’s clear where the support pillars and floor plates are. Additionally, with the vast, open floor plans of these warehouses that are only limited by the structural columns, the interior is entirely free for whatever desire you may have. This is known as “free plan,” and it is why industrial buildings typically lend themselves a lot better for adaptive reuse.
The main entrance has a masonry border surrounding it (either stone or concrete, probably the latter), which emphasizes and ennobles it:
Detail of the sign above the entrance:
This is original to the building. The rusted iron rosettes below it once held chains that supported a canopy over the entrance, long absent.
Compare those great, level pictures I took earlier with this one…this is a much more common herr2ck-esque detail shot. It is well composed, but unlike Steve in Minecraft, I can’t enter creative mode and fly upwards to get perfectly leveled photos of building tops.
The brick walls are laid in Scottish bond, where five courses (rows) of normally oriented bricks are surmounted by a course of headers (small side facing outward). This is a little difficult to see here, because the corner quoins, cruciform pattern beneath the concrete string course, and lintels above the windows make the brickwork here visually very busy:
These windows are replacements, but their mullion and muntin pattern is very similar to the original industrial windows on the warehouse.
Under the viaduct from 3rd Street to I-670:
I wandered inside the parking lot to take some more pictures of the area not visible off of 4th Street. I guess I was technically trespassing, but the workers heading to lunch either ignored me or smiled politely, and I usually find it best practice to ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Pulling the architecture student excuse can get a little extra leeway, too.
The new main entrance has a steel frame very similar to the one by the railroad buildings we’re about to see:
These small buildings to the east of the main plant were used as a warehouse and pipe shed. The curvature of the covered walkway was due to the curving rail spur that led to the Big 4 tracks nearby.
These buildings have now been co-opted as a trendy wedding venue.
“Hey babe…let’s have our reception in the decrepit old warehouse! The smell of industrial solvents is PERFECT ambience!”
Just kidding…I’m sure they’ve been cleaned up for the discerning tastes of brides who color everything beige and plan to name their children Remington and Aishleigh.
The brick bulk of the main building looms ominously over the covered walkway here, which looks downright spindly in comparison:
Another similar view I took heading back:
I was really digging the hell out of the steel canopy here. Besides architectural ornamentation, I like visible structure/tectonics in more modern buildings, which I find has a similar visually maximalist quality.
The blue coloring is a bit of a tragedy, and it appears to actually highlight the rust chewing up the steel here:
Maybe that’s the look they were going for…tetanus-chic.
I think the canopy itself here and its trusses are modern, while the framing and beam beneath are original.
I still can’t quite pinpoint what this structure’s original function would have been. It may have been a canopy, possibly to protect sensitive hardware components from rain, but why would it be necessary all the way around? The theory I lend the most credence to is that it was used to hoist heavy or bulky items, and it might have had some sort of rail system to haul them up or down the platform. However, with the placement of the trusses and beams, I’m not sure how that would even be possible.
Maybe it’s the nostalgia from taking the El in Chicago, whose steel elevated tracks date to the system’s construction more than a century ago, and thus have the crusty steel beams and chipping paint to match from decades of deferred maintenance. At least this structure isn’t supporting anything of value, like, say, an eight-car train hauling 500 worn-out people from the Loop after work.
These trusses and beam are looking particularly nasty:
Jeez, I really did take a lot of photos of this thing.
Had enough yet?
Alright, enough of that. Let’s head back.
I slogged my way back down the 4th Street viaduct and went off to the Central Ohio Fire Museum. Stay tuned for that article. Last thing--this post might have noticeably better prose and snarkiness than usual, which was a conscious effort on my part. I felt that as my photography skills have noticeably improved, my writing hasn’t, and as of late I’m being more intentional about my writing style (particularly in my own commentary).
Sources:
https://columbuslibrary.omeka.net/items/show/528
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/ohio/id/14208/rec/3
https://smbhinc.com/smith-brothers-warehouse/
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/ohio/id/22960
https://columbusunderground.com/historic-smith-bros-hardware-building-continues-ongoing-rebirth/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDQmfmHOU1g
https://www.facebook.com/groups/202347880517398/posts/1468318550586985/
https://beesfirstappearance.wordpress.com/2018/03/30/smithbros/
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084cm.g4084cm_g06656192101/?sp=84
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/columbusmaps/id/4893/rec/9