Category: Historic Preservation

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Historic Preservation Public Policy

House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Restores SAT, PA and Heritage Area Funding

From Preservation Action:

On Thursday of this week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior and Environment held a mark-up of the FY2011 spending bill. Despite a difficult budgetary climate, Chairman Jim Moran (D-VA) said in his opening statement, “We have restored many grant programs that have for years been Congressional Priorities, including Save America’s Treasures, Heritage Area Partnerships, [and] Preserve America…”

Earlier this year, the Administration proposed eliminating all funding for the Save America’s Treasure and Preserve America programs, and cut National Heritage Area spending by one half. Popular with members of Congress, there was a great deal of speculation that the funding would be restored in the House and Senate budgets. Nevertheless, a wholesale grassroots push for restoring funding for these programs was undertaken by PA, the National Trust and several other national partners.

The overall Interior/Environment spending cap set by the full Appropriations Committee allows for $32.24 billion in discretionary spending compared to $32.33 billion in the Senate and $32.37 requested by the President. The exact funding levels for State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, Save America’s Treasures, Preserve America and Heritage Areas have not yet been released.

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Historic Preservation Public Policy

U.S. House Committee Approves Full Funding for Historic Preservation Fund

From the Coalition to Fully Fund the Historic Preservation Fund:

Good news! The House Natural Resources Committee passed the CLEAR Act, which includes the provision to fully fund the Historic Preservation Fund. One amendment was offered which would have stripped the guaranteed and permanent funding for the HPF, LWCF [Land and Water Conservation Fund] and a new Oceans Trust Fund, however thanks in part to efforts by Coalition members, the amendment failed. There is still a long way to go to achieve our ultimate goal, however the CLEAR Act will now go forward for a full House vote with the HPF provision included. For the official press release on the bill, you can follow this link.

Categories
Historic Preservation

Are You a Member of Local Historic Preservation Organizations?

The Campbell House Museum just started a Twitter account.  This is definitely a good move to reach a new and younger audience for an established house museum.  Often missing from the conversations about historic preservation on Twitter and other online spaces are local institutions.  The gap is generational, as older joining is separated from the over-wired, individualized approaches of young advocates today.

Still, does new media have to remain separate from the old movement?  Of course not.  The gap must be spanned to keep long-standing preservation organizations viable.  The Campbell House Museum recognizes that it’s a two-way street.

Readers, I want to know:

Are you a member of local historic preservation organizations?  Which ones?

If not, why not?

Leave your comments here.

Categories
Historic Preservation Public Policy

Full Funding for Federal Historic Preservation Fund Added to Bill

Great news comes from Erik Hein, President of Preservation Action:

This is a terrific day for preservation. After months of grassroots advocacy by all of us, as well as our partners through the Coalition to Fully Fund the Historic Preservation Fund, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) has introduced an amended CLEAR Act bill (H.R. 3534) that includes full funding for the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF). The bill originally only included full funding for the HPF’s sister fund, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. A summary of the amended bill can be downloaded at http://www.preservationaction.org/10lobbying/clearactdiscussiondraft.pdf.

To brush up on the HPF, the CLEAR Act, and our efforts to achieve full funding, visit this page

To learn more about the Coalition to Fully Fund the HPF, visit www.fullyfundhpf.org.

The full press release issued by the House Committee on Natural Resources can be viewed here.

Great work everyone! The next step will be a hearing on the amended bill which is scheduled for June 30th.

Is Your Organization Involved?

St. Louis organizations and firms that are members of the Coalition to Fully Fund the Historic Preservation Fund are the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation, Friends of the San Luis and the Preservation Research Office. Your preservation or public history organization or firm’s voice is needed in coming weeks, so please lend it!

Contact Your Senator

The Rahall amendment may need strong support in the United States Senate to keep in the bill. Please contact your senator today with a brief note or phone call stating why funding the Historic Preservation Fund is important.

Categories
Demolition Downtown Historic Preservation

Old Stix Baer & Fuller Building Re-Emerging

by Michael R. Allen

The spirit of John Mauran might be pleased to float down Washington Avenue nowadays. With demolition of the St. Louis Centre skybridge comes the first clear view of the Washington Avenue elevation of the building that originally housed Stix Baer and Fuller Company’s Grand-Leader Department Store. Mauran’s firm of Mauran, Russell & Garden designed the eight-story eastern section, built in 1906. The successor firm Mauran Russell & Crowell designed the nearly-identically-articulated ten-story western section, completed in 1919.

Photograph by Landmarks Association of St. Louis, 1982.

The firm’s later incarnation of Russell, Mullgardt & Schwarz designed a contrasting modern rooftop addition on the eight-story section that was built in 1949, but otherwise the department store building stood unsullied until the start of construction of the St. Louis Centre skybridge in 1984. Fortunately, the bridge has not taken nearly as long to destroy as it did to build, and 25 years of an occluded Stix facade are over. The Washington elevation looks decent underneath, too. The damage is minimal and shall be easily overcome when the building is rehabilitated starting this year.

One of the small joys of the skybridge demolition is the revelation that one of the eastern section’s iron balconies has been intact under the bridge all this time. The use of the balconies remains undocumented, but they are an original feature of the building.

The view of the old Stix building gets better every day.

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Historic Preservation Missouri St. Louis County

Fairfax House, Rock Hill Presbyterian Church, Route 66 Bridge Make Statewide Endangered List

This week, Missouri Preservation announced its 2010 Most Endangered Properties list. St. Louis area listings are the Route 66 Bridge over the Meramec River as well as the adjacent Fairfax House and Rock Hill Presbyterian Church in Rock Hill.

Rock Hill Presbyterian Church is in urgent need of a preservation plan. From Missouri Preservation’s announcement:

After being moved several times because of increasing commercial and residential development, the Fairfax House has ended up on another former Marshall property. In February 2010, it was discovered that the Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery was seeking to sell the Rock Hill Presbyterian Church, presenting a threat to the historic church building and an additional threat to Fairfax House. This property is now situated at the intersection of two busy St. Louis county roads. It is a target for commercial development as the City of Rock Hill, which does its own zoning and has no current historic preservation ordinance, has zoned this property “commercial.”

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Demolition Historic Preservation North St. Louis The Ville

Some Frame Houses in the Ville

by Michael R. Allen

The Ville has lost plenty of buildings in the last fifty years, but remarkably many frame houses remain from early development. Still, the frame houses don’t last long when abandoned. The photograph above shows three similar frame houses in the 2500 block of Whittier (across from the old Homer G. Phillips Hospital) back in 2004.

The house at 2420 Whittier dated to 1885 and was built by James Chadwick, an active developer in what was then known as Elleardsville. This house was for sale in 2004. The original clapboard siding was still in place under later asbestos tile siding. Now it is a burned out pile of building debris. The fire revealed that the original wooden shingles were still present under layers of newer roofing!

The only house remaining from the group of three that I photographed in 2004 is the house in the middle at 2518 Whittier. The date of construction is unknown, but it was probably built around 1885 too. In 1906, it was moved to this site. Today it is well-kept (although the original siding is either missing or covered) and occupied. The house at 2518 Whittier is included in an architectural survey of the Ville neighborhood conducted by Lynn Josse and myself under the supervision of the city’s Cultural Resources Office.

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Benton Park West Historic Preservation Housing LRA

Last Chance for 3244 Iowa Street

by Michael R. Allen

This week I received an e-mail about 3244 Iowa Avenue (pictured above) from JoAnn Vatcha, Housing Analyst for the Community Development Administration. The email stated that the city was issuing a “last chance” call to respond to a Request for Proposals issued last year for the beleaguered property.

The diminutive 19th century alley house — 600 square feet — in Benton Park West is owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority and has been considered a vacant building by the Building Division since 2003. The citizen complaints on the house keep coming, and the front wall has suffered spalling. Still, the house is in sound shape and is just a block off of Cherokee Street. This block is intact with historic buildings lining both sides of the street, and its loss would create a hole. The small size is perfect for a single person or couple wanting to be close to the buzz of Cherokee.

Hopefully a developer will answer the call. Meanwhile, some cities have historic preservation organizations that buy, rehab and sell houses that are facing the “last chance.” Should St. Louis follow suit?

(The city has posted all residential building RFPs here.)

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Central West End DeVille Motor Hotel Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern Preservation Board

Missouri Court of Appeals to Hear San Luis Appeal Tomorrow

by Michael R. Allen

Demonstrating against the San Luis demolition, June 2009.
Tomorrow at 11:00 a.m., the Eastern District of the Missouri Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in Friends of the San Luis v. the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The court meets on the third floor of the Old Post Office downtown, and supporters of the Friends of the San Luis are invited to attend. The Court of Appeals will issue its ruling later.

What is happening? After the Preservation Board approved by a thin 3-2 margin a preliminary application for demolition in June 2009, the Friends of the San Luis (disclaimer: I serve as the organization’s president) filed a petition for injunction to halt the demolition of the mid-century modern San Luis Apartments (originally the DeVille Motor Hotel) 1t 4483 Lindell Boulevard in the Central West End. Under city preservation law, a preliminary grant of demolition cannot be appealed until a demolition permit is issued. That stipulation makes appeals moot, at least beyond procedural review.

Circuit Court Judge Robert Dierker, Jr. dismissed the Friends’ petition with prejudice. Dierker opined that preservation laws were an encumbrance on private property rights, and that only persons with direct financial interest — essentially, adjacent property owners — have standing under the city’s preservation ordinance. (Dierker’s forthcoming ruling in the Northside Regeneration suit should be interesting given that he must choose between the divergent interests of private property owners.) The ruling cut against city government’s own interpretation of the ordinance by granting only narrow right to redress.

Given Dierker’s conservative judicial activism, the Friends could have let the matter go. Yet we appealed to ensure that Dierker’s ruling does not stand as precedent in the future. Who knows when and why citizens will need rights to appeal the Preservation Board’s decisions? All we know is that the right to appeal should apply to any citizen of the city of St. Louis. After all, the ordinance states that “[t]he intent of this ordinance is to promote the prosperity and general welfare of the public, including particularly the educational and cultural welfare.”

Categories
Historic Preservation Preservation Board South St. Louis

Preservation Board Spares Chouteau Avenue Buildings; Now What?

by Michael R. Allen

On Monday, the St. Louis Preservation Board unanimously voted to uphold the Cultural Resources Office’s denial of an application to demolish the commercial buildings at 2612-30 Chouteau Avenue. The applicant, Crown 40, Inc., was represented in testimony by Charles Mace of Chuck’s Brick and Demo and John Zumwalt of Crown 40. Speaking against demolition — briefly, because the Board already seemed ready to reject the appeal — were Andrew Weil of Landmarks Association, Lafayette Square resident Jason Stokes and myself.

Zumwalt testified that Crown 40 purchased the properties to prevent a competitor from purchasing the buildings and opening a gas station that might compete with Crown 40’s new Crown Mart gas station near I-44 and Jefferson Avenue. Crown 40 has no intention of building a gas station on the site but — and this gets weird — wants to buy the two buildings to the east, demolish all of them and some day build something new there. This desire is odd because the corner building is occupied by a dental clinic that was not represented in Monday’s proceedings. The other building is for sale.

Perhaps 2626-30 Chouteau (the large wagon company warehouse at right in the photograph above) is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. In my professional opinion, the other buildings are not — not even as a district. The alterations have damaged historic integrity, and there is not sufficient context for a larger listing.

Of course, many buildings are preserved without official landmark designation and without tax credits. Can these be? Sure, but the owner doesn’t seem interested. What can change his mind?