Take a peek inside Fresno’s oldest high-rise — soon to be city’s coolest apartment building

As readers of this column know all too well, I like old buildings.

My favorite old building, in Fresno at least, also happens to be the city’s oldest steel-framed high-rise: the 10-story Helm Building that occupies the northwest corner of Fulton and Mariposa streets.

Why my favorite? Maybe it’s the rectangular silhouette the Helm Building cuts across the sky when viewed at a distance. Maybe it’s the broad overhanging cornice adorned with intricate carvings. Or the way the first two floors, floor three, floors four through seven and finally floors nine and 10 are separated by decorative friezes. Or even the terracotta panels that have been painstakingly restored.

These things are hard to explain.

Unlike its taller and more famous neighbor on the opposite corner, the 16-story Pacific Southwest Building, the Helm Building is vacant besides a T-Mobile store on the ground floor. Floors two through 10 haven’t seen any occupants since 1995 when the building’s few remaining tenants (mostly lawyers) were abruptly evicted.

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But perhaps in a few years, my favorite old building will be teeming with new life.

Co-owner Sevak Khatchadourian has submitted a proposal to transform the Helm Building’s upper nine floors into 99 market-rate studio and one-bedroom apartments. Each 350- to 600-square foot unit would have its own kitchen, bathroom and large windows with views of downtown.

“The plan is to create a great, fun place for people to live,” Khatchadourian said. “Where they can go to the restaurants downstairs or across the street and then come up and crash in their beds.”

Since October, when the Helm Building’s interior renovation permits went before the Historic Preservation Commission, I’ve been bugging building manager Charles Atikian for a peek inside, especially of the long-abandoned upper floors.

While combing The Bee’s archives for information about the 108-year-old building, descriptions of marble-lined hallways, a 10-story glass mail chute and elevator doors with detailed bronze relief depicting San Joaquin Valley viticulture and winemaking left me tantalized.

After all these decades of dormancy and neglect, is any of that cool stuff still there?

The answer, it turns out, is “yes.” Starting with the lobby area and its white marble walls and original elevator doors still intact. The upper floor hallways are lined with gray marble — you’ll even find marble urinal dividers in the men’s restrooms — except on one floor where the marble tiles have been covered by wood paneling. (Yuck.)

“I don’t know what the cost of marble was (in 1914) relative to other materials, but these days marble is very expensive,” Khatchadourian said while rubbing his hand across the smooth surface.

I was a little disappointed to find the upper floors almost completely gutted. (Archived descriptions of the 1995 evictions left me with a vivid imagination of a Pompeii-like time capsule.) But while standing in one of the corner units on floor 8, with its commanding view of Chukchansi Park and the county courthouse that will soon meet its expiration date, that feeling was quickly replaced by excitement.

“Where else are you going to find something else like this in Fresno?” Khatchadourian asked.

‘Housing is the key ingredient’

While the privately financed project still requires City Council approval, that should be a formality considering Khatchadourian’s successful track record with the Pacific Southwest Building that he also co-owns with his brother, Serko.

Khatchadourian is hopeful interior renovations on the Helm Building, which include laundry rooms on every floor, air conditioners for each unit and a rooftop solar electricity system, can begin next year. Among the first tasks will be re-installation of the upper-floor windows.

“Housing is the key ingredient in making downtown successful,” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said during a recent interview at City Hall. “We have about 3,000 people living down there and we need 10,000.”

Khatchadourian believes the micro apartments planned for the Helm Building will be attractive to “young entrepreneurs” who don’t want a lot of living space and prefer to be within walking distance of downtown’s growing number of breweries and restaurants.

“That’s the going trend, ” the Beverly Hills-based developer said. “In big cities — downtown LA, Seattle — that’s where the demand is right now. … There is a definite need in downtown Fresno.”

A fondness for historical buildings, as well as the satisfaction of completing challenging projects, is what drew Khatchadourian to invest in Fulton Street about a decade ago.

But as he has since discovered, others share the same fondness. And when those people see him on the street during one of his regular visits to Fresno, they come up and say so.

“It’s been a really fun experience,” Khatchadourian said. “They tell me, ‘My father had an office there’ or ‘My cousin used to be in that building’ or ‘I’ve been to that building so many times. What is going on? What’s the update?’ Not only once but multiple, multiple times throughout the years.

“I guess people really care about this building and they want something good to happen to it.”

Indeed we do. We really, really do.