The Delmarva Power & Light Building, also known as the DCAD Building, is a historic office building in downtown
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the List of municipalities in Delaware, most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish colonization of the Americas, Swedish settlement in North America. It lie ...
. The former headquarters of
Delmarva Power & Light (DP&L) is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
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History
DP&L decided to build the headquarters in 1931 which was completed the subsequent year. While the original building was four stories, it was engineered with a fifth floor in mind which was eventually added in 1954. In 1972, the company moved their headquarters to 8th & King and the building sat vacant for a decade before Chase Manhattan Bank
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and financial services holding ...
leased the space.Delaware College of Art and Design
Delaware College of Art and Design (DCAD) was a private art school in Wilmington, Delaware. It was founded in 1997 through a partnership between the Pratt Institute and the Corcoran College of Art and Design. It was accredited by the Middle State ...
(DCAD) took over the building from the bank to use as their main academic building with classrooms, studio space, and offices. In 2021, DCAD sold their adjacent resident hall and used some of the proceeds to refurbish the interior.
In 2024, the school announced that they would permanently close down. The Buccini Pollin Group, a major Wilmington developer, later purchased the building for $3.5 million.
Architecture
The Art Deco building faces Market Street with an Indiana limestone facade consisting of six bays
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
. Granite piers Piers may refer to:
* Pier, a raised structure over a body of water
* Pier (architecture), an architectural support
* Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name)
* Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...
frame the main entrance which is below a transom containing a lightning bolt motif.[
The first floor sits on a black granite base. The second through fourth floors have four triangular ]fluted
Fluting may refer to:
*Fluting (architecture)
*Fluting (firearms)
*Fluting (geology)
* Fluting (glacial)
*Fluting (paper)
*Playing a flute (musical instrument)
Arts, entertainment, and media
*Fluting on the Hump
''Fluting on the Hump'' is the ...
limestone pilasters
In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...
with floral capitals
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital
** List of national capitals
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter
Econom ...
. The fourth-floor has a parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...
featuring stylized cresting in limestone.[ The fifth floor is a plain brick penthouse.][ The 6th Street side of the building is less ornate, consisting largely of painted brick.][
]
See also
*
References
{{NRHP
Office buildings completed in 1932
1932 establishments in Delaware
Art Deco architecture in Delaware
Office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places in Wilmington, Delaware
University and college buildings in Delaware
Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Delaware