A historic debate growing about preservation rules - Finance ...

Posted: 5:44 pm Thu, November 10, 2011
By Chris?Newmarker
Tags: AIA Minnesota, architecture, Charlene Roise, Charles Liddy Jr., Hess Roise, historic preservation, Michael Roehr, Miller Dunwiddie Architecture, Riverside Plaza, RoehrSchmitt Architecture

Candice Clark, territory manager for Vista, Calif.-based Solatube International, shows off how solar tube products work Thursday during the 2011 AIA Minnesota Convention, which wraps up Friday at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Plymouth-based Designer Specialty Products, the Twin Cities distributor for Solatube, has installed 40,000 Solatubes in the metro area. (File photo: Bill Klotz)

The decades old historic preservation movement may be due for some rehabilitation and revitalization of its own ? with subjects of debate including ways to streamline bureaucratic rules and red tape, and the very nature of what should be considered historic.

That was the big takeaway from a panel discussion Thursday at the 2011 AIA Minnesota Convention, which ends Friday at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

While the historic buildings that advocates are seeking to salvage can be decades if not hundreds of years old, the movement itself was a product of 1960s social activism that culminated in the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. With local, state and federal agencies all possibly playing role in historic preservation, the rules can become confusing for developers seeking to rehabilitate old buildings.

?There needs to be some rethinking of how it works,? acknowledged panel moderator Charlene Roise of Minneapolis-based historical consultants Hess Roise.

?Developers are all over that? when it comes to commercial projects with a historic preservation component, thanks to the year-old Minnesota historic tax credit, which covers 20 percent of rehabilitation costs, said Charles Liddy Jr., a principal at Minneapolis-based Miller Dunwiddie Architecture who has worked in the preservation space for nearly 40 years. (The 35-year-old federal credit covers another 20 percent.)

Projects involving residential buildings, however, don?t qualify for the credit, and Liddy and others acknowledged rules around compliance can be confusing. Even Liddy was amazed to hear from an audience member that historic preservation agencies in Illinois disagreed with Minneapolis-based Target Corp. about the idea of the retailer displaying prices in the windows of the former Carson Pirie Scott & Co. store in Chicago, even though old pictures of the building show prices displayed in the windows.

Liddy himself recalled how different boundaries for the local and federal preservation areas for Minneapolis? Warehouse District caused confusion for years before the differences were resolved a few years back. He suggested that architects should consult with government agencies about what is acceptable before they draw up plans, not after.

On top of the red tape, there?s the question of what is really historic and what deserves to be preserved ? a question that is admittedly subjective. Roise helped assemble Sherman Associates? successful application to get Riverside Plaza ? a huge modernist housing development constructed along Minneapolis? West Bank in the 1970s ? listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Resulting tax credits are helping to pay for a $132 million renovation of the buildings that?s expected to be completed in late 2012.

Roise acknowledged she hears many local residents calling the housing complex ugly, but architects consider the buildings a major work by the late architect Ralph Rapson, who headed the University of Minnesota?s architecture school for decades. (Audience members, interestingly enough, debated whether Rapson himself liked the complex in his later years.)

Michael Roehr, the founding principal of Minneapolis-based RoehrSchmitt Architecture, recalled that Riverside Plaza was meant to replace older, historic structures in the area. Roehr found it ?deeply ironic? that it received a historic designation.

Riverside Plaza was able to skirt the National Register?s 50-year rule because it was deemed an especially important structure. The debate of what is truly historic will likely increase as more creations of the 1960s and 1970s become eligible.

The Minneapolis skyway system, for example, began 49 years ago, in 1962. Does it deserve historic preservation?

Roehr wondered whether an ?elite academic subset of people? has too much say over what is really historic. ?It?s not really a democratic process, but are the values of the community filtering through?? he said.

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Source: http://finance-commerce.com/2011/11/a-historic-debate-growing-about-preservation-rules/

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