Re-created from one of El Paso’s premier salvable mid-century modern structures, Crazy Cat Cyclery is a community anchor for cycling and wellness, with proximity to mountain bike paths and the university. The site is located at an important multi-modal node that is also a transition from a traditional 1920’s neighborhood into one of El Paso’s first ranch style suburbs. The architects redeveloped the building from its last iteration as a tumbled brick-clad tenant structure by restoring the envelope’s iconic 1958 Nesmith and Lane vocabulary: emphasizing original steel verticals, the textile block service core, and a second-story concrete solar screen. The project employs a new open floor plan to reflect the structure's original modern capability and new sociable use as a neighborhood hub, bicycle shop, fitness center and demonstration of what it means to preserve El Paso’s recent past.

To accomplish a sensitive rehabilitation and yet create a new thermal envelope that reduces energy consumption by 200 percent, the architects reused inherent passive solar features and added a canopy to reduce solar heat gain while reinforcing the original distinctive horizontal lines.

Crazy Cat’s working environment fosters collaboration between bicycle activists and the community, an ethos the architects refer to with bespoke concrete pours, custom steel at the cash wrap and a technical service area designed with every tool’s placement being an intentional part of the open-storage composition.

New landscape on the site uses low-water indigenous material of the nearby arroyo for the mountain bike side and more formalized plantings at the street bike side. Benches, landscape, and bike racks in the front of the building have become a neighborhood gathering spot for barbeques, race packet pick-ups, and a place to eat lunch from local food trucks encouraged to use the parking lot.