Category: Historic Preservation

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Historic Preservation Illinois Metro East Missouri Legislature Public Policy

Illinois Legislation Would Enact Historic Tax Credit Modeled on Missouri’s

by Michael R. Allen

Rick Bonasch at STL Rising wrote a post today asking for more information on a proposed state historic rehabilitation tax credit in Illinois.

Representative Jay Hoffman (D-Collinsville) filed HB 469 on February 4, Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) filed HB 586 on February 6 and Senator Dan Kotoski (D-Park Ridge) filed SB 1366 on February 10. The similar bills would enact a state historic rehabilitation tax credit modeled on Missouri’s tax credit. All bills have had a first reading and remain in committee.

While Missouri inexplicably debates the future of its model tax credit, other states are looking at copying ours. What a strange reversal of regional dynamics if Illinois had an uncapped historic rehab tax credit and Missouri did not. The tax credit would be a boon to Alton, Belleville, Granite City and other east side communities that are interested in downtown revitalization.

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Historic Preservation Missouri Legislature Public Policy

Missouri House Speaker Won’t Accept Historic Tax Credit Cap Under $150 Million

by Michael R. Allen

According to the Post-Dispatch, Missouri House Speaker Ron Richard (R) won’t accept a cap on the historic rehabilitation tax credits less than $150 million. That’s great news. As Democratic Governor Jay Nixon maintains his silence, we have a prominent Republican come forward with some support for one of the state’s most effective and democratically available economic development tools. Former Governor Matt Blunt (R) was a strong supporter of the historic tax credit, as is Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (R). While the attack on the program is coming mainly from Republicans using typical conservative anti-city rhetoric, other prominent conservative Republicans support the program (and, admittedly, some others of dubious utility).

While a $150 million cap could still cause a competitive environment in which big developers will have an advantage over homeowners, it’s a better stance than silence. State Senator Jeff Smith (D) has raised the stakes by calling for a cap no less than $170 million, the amount of credits issued in 2008, and Speaker Richard says that there is room to negotiate with his figure and Smith’s. That is an encouraging dialogue, although the need for any cap has not been adequately justified by its proponents, whose arguments are more arguments against the historic tax credit itself.

Speaker Richard told reporters that “I will have the last word on tax credits.” I wish that were true, but the last word comes at the desk of the governor when he decides whether to veto or approve an economic development bill sent to him by the legislature. What will the last word on historic tax credits be? Nixon has provided few clues.

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Historic Preservation Missouri Legislature Public Policy

Missouri Senate Now Considering $100 Million Cap on Historic Tax Credits

by Michael R. Allen

Yesterday, the Missouri State Senate took a few steps toward passage of the Quality Jobs bill favored by Governor Jay Nixon. The new version of the bill, which stalled but indicates the direction the Senate is heading, includes a $100 million cap on the state’s historic rehabilitation tax credit, an amount $70 million less than the figure for credits issued in 2008.

Floor debate lasted until well after 11:00 p.m., with several amendments offered. Two good amendments adopted were one by Sen. John Griesheimer (R) to remove language that would subject tax credits to appropriation by the General Assembly and another offered by Sen. Brad Lager (R) to remove prohibitions on layering different tax credits. Lager had written that prohibition but offered the removal as a compromise.

Lager, one of the most ardent opponents of the historic rehabilitation tax credit, stated yesterday that $100 million was the highest cap on the historic tax credits that he would accept.

Keep calling and writing your senators, representatives and governor. Governor Nixon has yet to make any promise to support the historic tax credit. Nixon’s influence could prevent a cap from being included in the final version of the bill.

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Historic Preservation South St. Louis Southampton Tower Grove East

Saving a Sense of the City

If you haven’t seen it yet, last week’s South City Journal feature “Saving a sense of the city” offers an overview of endangered south city buildings, ranging from the Avalon Theater to the smokestack at the Carondelet Coke plant. Sean Clubb assembled the story and Erica Burrus photographed the sites.

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Historic Preservation Hyde Park LRA North St. Louis

A Race With Gravity

by Michael R. Allen

No building better captures the sense of nonchalant destruction that permeates Hyde Park than the house at 3802 Blair Avenue. Sitting alone after the deaths of its neighbors over the last thirty years, the building has put on a long, slow architectural striptease. First, its cornice started spalling. Bricks fell. Then, its front wall unzipped to reveal the stuffer brick behind the face brick. Then, off with most of the face brick. Last year, the Forestry Division came and cut down all of the ghetto palms in front to give us a nice clear view of the front wall. Now, the stuffer brick is starting to fall back into the house to reveal even more.

Not exactly sexy stuff.

The house is owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority and has been vacant for a generation. The brick loss started about a decade ago, and is reaching a finale. Why no one thought to stabilize or even demolish the house is a mystery. A wistful for-sale sign put up by the Neighborhood Council even hangs on the building. Then again, in Hyde Park, decline is nothing out of the ordinary.

Interesting that the side walls are intact and the building is relatively sound. Someone could even rebuild the front wall, although I doubt that simply relaying the face brick is possible at this point. The Neighborhood Council deserves credit for recognizing that the face brick loss was more cosmetic damage and that rehabilitation was not impossible. Some key details are still intact, like the mansard roof and dormers. There’s no push to demolish the house — just time to watch more pieces come off of the house. The house is well-paced in its race with gravity. There seems to always be more time for a vacant brick building to collapse — and always time to come to the rescue.

Categories
Historic Preservation Missouri Missouri Legislature Public Policy

Small Town Missouri Needs the Historic Tax Credit

by Michael R. Allen

The last time that I drove back from Jefferson City on Highway 94, I snapped this photograph of a historic store building in Tebbetts, Missouri. Who wants to be that this building will still be standing in ten years if Missouri greatly caps the state historic rehabilitation tax credit?

The real reason that Missouri senators should oppose the cap on historic tax credits proposed by Senator Brad Lager (R) is not because St. Louis’ “tall hogs” are hungry. The reason is because small towns across this state have only started figuring out how to use the tax credit to save their heritage and bring economic development to Main Street. In the past five years there has been a spate of tax credit activity outside of St. Louis and Kansas City. It’s not nearly as much as the activity in those big cities, but it will never grow if the credit is capped.

If the credit is capped, and the credit run through an appropriations process, issuance of the credit will become a political process. Currently, all one needs is a completed project and the right forms filled out — do the work, get the credit. A cap and appropriation will benefit the big developers who can afford to gain influence and work at getting credits full time. The Lager cap would end up benefiting those who are already good at using the credit (big cities) and stunt the growth of tax credit activity in small towns across Missouri.

I am a St. Louisan who knows this building in Tebbetts needs the historic tax credit just as much as the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, or houses in Benton Park. We can’t write off the rest of the state. Ironically, Lager’s proposal might do just that. Rural areas are always at a disadvantage when it comes to economic development. The historic tax credit is the antidote, and with time and training — would Lager support a state-funded tax credit training program? — the small towns will use this credit to remake themselves. All of the Lager changes work against small towns trying to survive, and play right into the hands of politically-connected developers.

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Collapse Fire Historic Preservation South St. Louis

Unknown Buyer of Pevely Dairy Complex May Back Off

by Michael R. Allen


The Post-Dispatch reports that the pending Pevely Dairy complex sale may stall after the spectacular loss on Sunday of one of the largest buildings on the site to a fire. The fire destroyed one of the two nearly identical production buildings. The lost building dated to 1943 and copied the original 1917 building design by architect Leonard Hager.

A big question since the St. Louis Business Journal first reported news of the contract on the complex is who is the prospective buyer (logical buyer St. Louis University has been rumored to be the shadow party). Scratch that — the bigger question since the abrupt closure of the complex by Prairie Farms in October was whether there would be a buyer in the near future. The speed of a sales contract on a formidable development project amid a general recession was, until Sunday, a relief to those who would like to see the landmark buildings revitalized. Hopefully the deal is still on, because what is left is still eligible for National Register of Historic Places listing and ripe for redevelopment.

At any rate the size of the project suddenly has changed.

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Historic Preservation Schools SLPS

SAB Approves Superintendent’s Recommended Facilities Plan

by Michael R. Allen

Last night, the Special Administrative Board unanimously approved the Facilities Management Plan recommended by St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams. The recommendations call for 17 school closures and the possible demolition of Mann School in Tower Grove South. (The summary and list are available here.) Adams first presented his recommendations to the SAB on February 26.

At last night’s meeting, three individuals spoke on behalf of Mann School during the public comment period, but the SAB ignored the pleas to keep the school open. However, the plan approved by the SAB would not close Mann until 2011 with a decision made next year, providing time for community input and reversal of the recommendations. Tower Grove South residents including the Block Captains association as well as Alderwoman Jennifer Florida (D-15th) oppose closing Mann and any plan that would call for its demolition.

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Historic Preservation Schools SLPS South St. Louis Tower Grove South

The Fate of Mann School

by Michael R. Allen

Photograph of Mann School in 1989 from Landmarks Association of St. Louis‘ survey of St. Louis Public Schools buidlings.

St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams relieved many city residents with his closure recommendations, which number 17 as opposed to the 29 schools proposed by a team of consultants hired by the district in January. However, Adams raised the threat to Mann School at 4047 Juniata in Tower Grove South, which Admas is proposing not only for closure but also for possible demolition and replacement with a new building.

This recommendation is actually the one point where Adams is actually pushing a more severe threat to the district’s historic architecture than did the old-building-fearing consultants from MGT of America. MGT proposed closing Mann along with Shenandoah and Sherman schools, with all three south side elementaries combined at a new super-school in Tower Grove East. Adams wants Shenandoah to remain open, but is proposing a merger of Mann and Sherman in a new building he thinks could be built on the Mann site. A final decision would be made next year, but the crucial step is taken tonight when the facilities management plan is ratified.

The Mann site must be the most poorly-suited site in the district for construction of a new school building. When Mann was built in 1901 to designs by William Ittner, the ornate Jacobethen revival school was a compact two-story building on a compact site. Unlike those of other Ittner schools, the Mann site was not expansive and landscaped; it was small and paved, used for playground space. The school was in close proximity to buildings across the alley and across the street, in a siting beautifully urban. A 1916 addition that doubled Mann’s size maintained the relationship of the school to the neighborhood. (Paul Hohmann has great photographs in a recent blog post at Vanishing STL.)

Now, the school is landlocked in one of the city’s most stable and densely populated neighborhoods. Furthermore, the elementary school is doing well — enrollment is around 80%, the student base is 52% ESOL so south city’s immigrants are well-served, and 12 different organizations provide services at the school to students neighborhood children. This is a model neighborhood school. In fact, the state of Mann sounds a lot like the vision that members of the Special Administrative Board have for other elementary schools in the district.

Tonight (Thursday, March 12), the Special Administrative Board has a chance to save that model school. The Board will approve a facilities plan and closure list at its meeting, 6:00 p.m. at the Gateway Schools complex gymnasium, 1200 N. Jefferson. the public may address the Board at this meeting.

The largest step that the SAB could take would be removing Mann from the closure list altogether to safeguard its success and connection to the neighborhood. However, under any circumstances, demolition of Mann School should not be an option in the facilities plan. The SAB must amend Adams’ recommendations to prohibit demolition of Mann or any other historic school building — a condition now placed by the SAB in all sales contracts to private owners. Besides, rehabbing Mann or Sherman, or both, would be far more economical than building new.

This building, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 for architectural significance, is a unique gem in a strong urban setting. The site is too small for a new school. The school is doing well. Why force an awkward fit, lose a great building and tamper with a stable neighborhood?

Categories
Flounder House Historic Preservation Soulard South St. Louis

Menard Triplets

by Michael R. Allen

The “Menard triplets” are three 19th century flounder houses in Soulard located on the west side of Menard Street just south of Russell. Many flounder roofs simply form a half-gable, running down from one side of the building to the other. These houses have a hip to their roofs that allows for a front-facing dormer. Still, the roof form is within the flounder house range. St. Louis seems to have the largest concentration of flounder houses, which are found in few American cities (Alexandria, Virginia and Philadelphia have them).

The center house (left here) was extended to the south to meet the northern house, creating a “mousehole” entrance to the gangway.

A plaque on the wall of the center house tells some of the story of the houses, including a wide range of salvage pieces that went into rehabilitation of the center house. Plaques like these are a great part of the urban fabric in that they allow buildings to tell some of their own story. Forget the Internet or a guidebook — the best way to explore is on foot, and the best way to learn about historic architecture is to study the buildings themselves. A few more clues always help.