The owner had a desire to add character to the landscape of a poplar highway that runs through town.  We were commissioned to be a part of this design-build collaboration that resulted in this 5,000 sqft high-end gun, gold, and pawn shop constructed in the heart of a restaurant district which serves as a prototype to see if other types of businesses will work in this area.  Primarily, the team wanted to adapt and reuse the existing closed restaurant for the conversion to the pawn shop, but soon after the initial preliminary design work began, it was discovered that the existing building could not be salvaged and was below flood plain for this area. Although this initially threw a roadblock in the original design outline, our design-build team was able to complete the project taking it from conceptual design to construction completion in six months.  Since it was a prototype, the scheme used is one that can easily be converted to a restaurant if needed with all necessary electrical and plumbing needs already placed in the slab and framework of the building, The design expresses a more sophisticated language and speaks of the guns, gold, jewelry and other extravagant valued pawn items that are sold in this store.