The First Federal Savings and Loan Association Building is a historic building located in Downtown

Davenport, Iowa Davenport ( ) is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state. Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 cen ...

, United States. It was individually listed on the Davenport Register of Historic Properties and 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 ...

in 2016. (Click on "Historic Preservation Commission" and then click on "Davenport Register of Historic Properties and Local Landmarks.") In 2020 it was included as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

in the

Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District The Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in the central business district of Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. At ...

History

First Federal Savings and Loan Association was incorporated in December 1933, and it was one of the financial institutions in the city that survived the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

. They began leasing the Lane Building in 1936 and purchased it three years later. Their operating budget grew from $5,487 in 1935 to $287,776 in 1941, and its assets from $14.8 million in 1947 to $53.5 million in 1959. They were primarily focused on financing new home construction and purchases, as well as capitalizing Davenport's growth in the mid-20th century. By 1966 when this building was completed, First Federal was the largest

Savings and loan association A savings and loan association (S&L), or thrift institution, is a financial institution that specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage and other loans. While the terms "S&L" and "thrift" are mainly used in the United States, ...

in eastern Iowa and western Illinois. The three-story

Modern movement Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

building was designed by William F. Cann of the Bank Building and Equipment Corp. of

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

. It was built at the same location of their previous building. This is one of the first and most architecturally significant modern buildings in Davenport. First Federal opened their first branch location on the north side of town in 1968. The savings and loan reorganized as First Federal Savings Bank in 1993. It was folded into Mercantile Bank two years later. Mercantile moved their downtown headquarters in 1997, and this building was converted into an office building. It was vacated in 2015. The building has been connected to the neighboring First Midwest building to create a new urban campus for

Scott Community College Scott Community College is a community college in Riverdale, Iowa, Riverdale, Iowa, near Bettendorf, Iowa, Bettendorf,Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

marble. It represents a move away from the transparent “glass box” design and toward the use of mass, form and masonry cladding. A unique feature of the building was its original drive-through window. The entrance was off Main Street on the west side of the building, and the customer would literally drive through the building and eventually exit onto West Third Street. The interior drive-through was eliminated when the building was renovated in 1975, and a new drive-through was built onto the east side. The

mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped ...

in the former financial services hall was eliminated in a 2002 building project when new office space was created. The conversion of the building into a college facility in 2018 left the exterior intact while reconfiguring the interior. Inspiration for the renovation project came from the Learning Commons at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

References

{{Historic Davenport structures, state=collapsed Commercial buildings completed in 1966 Modernist architecture in Iowa Buildings and structures in Davenport, Iowa Bank buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Davenport, Iowa Davenport Register of Historic Properties Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Iowa