Preserving a Piece of Salina's History

For nearly a century, the United Building has stood watch over downtown Salina. Completed in 1929 by Busboom and Rauh from a design by architect Charles W. Shaver, the ten-story Art Deco tower has seen businesses come and go and downtown itself change shape around it. Through all of it, one part of the building stayed the same: its original steel windows, still doing the job they were installed to do nearly 100 years ago. 

This summer, Pella Windows & Doors of Kansas began one of its largest commercial undertakings to date, replacing all 302 of the building's original steel windows while keeping the character of one of Salina's most recognized buildings intact. It's a project that asks for more than quality windows. It calls for a plan that respects the building's age and a team that treats every opening as its own puzzle to solve.

Long before the current crew arrived on site, architect Charles Shaver designed the United Building as a statement for downtown Salina. Nearly a century later, the clean lines and Art Deco detailing that defined the era of Kansas architecture it came from still draw attention from people walking past. 

Heading into the project, the Pella team expected to find the kind of shifting and settling that comes with a building nearing its hundredth year, and planned for adjustments at each opening. After measuring all 302 window openings, they found no more than one-eighth of an inch of variance across the entire building. For a structure built in 1929, it's a striking reminder of how precisely the original construction was done, and it means today's installers are working from a foundation that has held its shape for generations.

Each original steel window carries its own set of challenges. The upper and lower sashes weigh roughly 40 pounds apiece, and every window includes four cast-iron counterweights, about 20 pounds each, that once powered a pulley system to hold the windows open. Taking that much weight and decades-old hardware out of a working building safely takes planning as much as muscle. 

Led by Matt Rogers, the Pella installation team built a removal process that keeps work moving while protecting the building and everyone in it. The old steel windows and counterweights are being collected by the building's maintenance staff and recycled as scrap metal, giving materials that have served the United Building for generations a second use.

Improving a nearly 100-year-old building's energy efficiency and comfort without disturbing what makes it recognizable takes coordination. Working alongside Pella Architectural Services, the team selected black Pella Impervia windows, installed using a specialized T-subframe assembly and clip system that allows each window to be set entirely from inside the building. 

That detail matters more than it might sound. Installing from the interior removes the need for extensive exterior scaffolding, which cuts down on disruption to the sidewalks and streets around the building and lets the project move floor by floor without stalling downtown traffic. Temporary fencing protects pedestrians as the crew works its way from one side of the building to the next, keeping safety part of the plan at every stage.

A project like the United Building isn't finished by equipment alone. It's finished by people who understand what they're preserving. The installation team brings years of field experience and training to jobs across the region, whether that's a single window in a family home or one of Kansas's architectural landmarks, and the approach doesn't change: measure carefully, plan for the details, and leave the site better than they found it. 

That commitment shows up throughout the United Building project, from measuring all 302 original openings before a single replacement window was manufactured to building a removal process for steel frames that have been in place since 1929. Much of it is work most passersby will never notice directly, but it's the reason the finished building will hold up.

Work began in late June and is expected to continue through the fall, with crews moving methodically around each side of the building from the lower floors upward. When the last window is set, downtown Salina will still recognize the United Building. Its Art Deco details and its place on the skyline aren't changing. What changes is what's behind the glass: 302 new windows built to carry the building through its next hundred years the way the original steel windows carried it through its first.