Business finds a home in a historic St. Paul home

Offices come in all shapes and sizes, from sprawling suburban campuses to a room with a computer in the back of a warehouse. But not too many of them are in converted former homes within popular historic neighborhoods.

Tom Irmiter, president of Forensic Building Science, purchased a 125-year-old, 2 ½-story home at 595 Selby Av. earlier this year to house his growing structural engineering firm. Now the St. Paul resident is preparing to carry out a complete rehab of its exterior, a project that seems likely to add to the charm and value of the bustling corner of Selby and Dale Street in the city's Cathedral Hill historic district.

Irmiter, 55, said work was set to begin this week on a $120,000 project to remove and replace the highly visible structure's dated siding and windows and perform other extensive exterior upgrades in an effort to bring it back to the way it might have looked when it was built.

"From what I can tell, this might be the oldest house on the block," said Irmiter, noting that the area is the epicenter of a still-percolating wave of gentrification and real estate investment in Cathedral Hill that began in the late 1980s.

The house, which is next door to the New Louisiana Cafe and close to the Mississippi Market food coop and the Muddy Pig craft beer bar, was first converted to office space in the late 1990s, receiving such interior upgrades as new bathrooms, wiring, data networking, exit signs and other features meant to bring it up to commercial code.

But it also retains some signature aspects of a Victorian-era home, including hardwood floors and an original first-floor fireplace.

The homey office space, however, sat vacant for two years before Irmiter tapped it for his new headquarters. He lives just a few blocks away and had been running his firm —which then only had two employees — out of a rental house on Laurel Avenue.

Business is booming for Forensic Building Science. Its specialty of determining the causes of building collapses is much in demand around the country, thanks mainly to the unprecedented series of natural disasters that have hit the United States in recent years.

For instance, the firm has worked extensively in Joplin, Mo., the scene of a devastating 2011 tornado that killed 158 people and caused $2.8 billion in damage. It is also now working on cases in New York and New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, using its expertise to weigh in as expert witnesses in insurance court cases resulting from the disasters.

Irmiter's background as a builder also comes into play: For more than 20 years he owned and operated Irmiter Contractors & Builders, through which he renovated hundreds of historic houses in St. Paul's Crocus Hill and Minneapolis' Kenwood neighborhoods.

"I suppose that's why I'm drawn to this motif rather than a traditional office building for my business," he said.

The exterior renovations at 595 Selby will be carried out under the watchful eye of the St. Paul Historic Preservation Commission, which Irmiter said will be documenting his progress in uncovering what lies beneath the house's weathered wood siding before replacing it with Hardie Board, a fiber-cement siding with a cedar shake look that has been deemed acceptable in the historic district.

Irmiter said the rehab will include a "storm gray, East Coast-look" paint job.

Don Jacobson is a St. Paul-based freelance writer and former editor of the Minnesota Real Estate Journal. He has covered Twin Cities commercial real estate for about a decade.