The Corder Building was designed by James W. Plachek in the Classical Revival style. Its sheer size and resolutely preserved elegance lend the neighborhood a heightened degree of urban dignity. Its construction filled in a whole previously undeveloped block at a single stroke, and was thus a major step in merging the smaller historic train-stop business districts of Shattuck-Center and Dwight-Shattuck into one continuous downtown.

Architect James Plachek was instrumental in the growth of downtown Berkeley in the late 1910s and 1920s. The solidly built brick and concrete second-generation Main Street that we see today ia still largely his work. His career, combining civic leadership with a near monopoly of public building commissions in Berkeley for thirty years - libraries, schools, civic buildings - typifies the fraternal, small-town climate of American business in the interwar years.