Matyk Building restoration brings back historic look to New Bo neighborhood

CEDAR RAPIDS - The painstaking restoration of a century-plus-old building is reaping visual rewards.

Owner Michael Richards has been working on the exterior of the Matyk Building, 1029 Third St. SE, to return the structure to its historic look.

“It's really tedious to get paint off of brick,” said Richards, who removed the building's whitewash to reveal original red brick and native Stone City limestone.

The new/old look of the Matyk Building, constructed in 1893 as a dry goods store, strikes a notable presence in the New Bohemia District in Cedar Rapids.

Red doors with hunter green trimwork complement other buildings in the district, including the Bottleworks Loft Condos at the end of the block. A streetscape was completed in the district earlier this year, and the NewBo City Market is slated to open next summer within sight of the building.

Just across 11th Avenue SE from the Matyk Building is the newly renovated CSPS performing arts center, a 120-year-old Czech social hall that reopened in August after a $7 million rehabilitation. Both buildings were inundated with 12 feet of Cedar River floodwaters in June 2008.

Richards has spent about $100,000 on restoration of the Matyk Building and received approval for a $4,500 ITC Midwest facade grant through the Czech Village/New Bohemia Main Street District.

He plans to open a neighborhood coffeehouse on the first floor when renovations are completed in three to six months. Tuckpointing on the building, scheduled for the spring, will add “another 100 years of life, at least,” Richards said.

The building is considered a significant contributing structure in the Bohemian Commercial Historic District, he noted.

Richards said the Matyk family, immigrants from what was then Czechoslovakia, opened their dry goods store on the first floor and lived upstairs.

The family operated the business through World War II and into the late 1940s, when it became the location of Mid States Distribution.

During the early 1950s, the store was among the first places where Cedar Rapids residents could purchase a television, Richards said.

His family bought the building in 1999, using it as a business and home before the flood. They started restoration work as soon as floodwaters receded, he said.

Richards, president of Soyawax International, has used the Matyk Building as the marketing office for Soyawax products for the past 12 years.

The company, a pioneer in the soy candle industry, uses the block warehouse section of the building to handle small orders, with wax production taking place at a Cargill soybean oil refinery.

Richards sees the building as part of the community, used as a peace center and for local arts gatherings, readings and other events.

“I always said I would open this as a coffeehouse when the streetscape was done,” he said. “Six years later, I'm doing what I always planned.”