It seems like almost every GLUEster has at least a passing interest in architecture and historic preservation.  Illustrious St. Louis GLUEsters Jeff and Randy Vines were the first to articulate to me, very succinctly, “It’s one things our cities have that Sun Belt cities can’t compete with.”  Our historic architecture, our urban fabric, is something that a shiny new city can only dream about.  It’s one of the things Rust Belt enthusiasts talk about when we talk about why we live here, and why we think other people might want to live here if they really knew about it: our authenticity, our sense that our cities came from somewhere.

And you know we can’t help but love it when the national press picks up on it.  This week, a great little piece from the New York Times on the recent development successes in Midtown Detroit–development that was largely dependent on the availability of historic preservation and brownfields tax credits.  Midtown isn’t experiencing this relative stability because of a bunch of new builds.  Hard-working Midtown advocates and developers are taking advantage of the character of the community’s historic building stock.

This just highlights the reasons to stay vigilant in support of historic preservation and brownfields tax credits in your state and at the federal level.  Check out Preservation Action for some resources and links.  I’m trying to put together some info on Michigan’s tax credit, which is up for renewal this year, and will hopefully have more for you next week.

Detroit has its share of historic architecture–and more than its share of vacancy and blight.  Consequently, the debates over historic preservation efforts in Detroit’s recent history have been contentious, to say the least.  And the stories about preservation here often say less about the value of a particular piece of architecture than they do about the transparency with which our city government makes decisions, the urgency of the other challenges facing the city, the possibility of re-imagining our physical landscape, and the passion of Detroit’s advocates.

Today I’m sharing an interview with Francis Grunow, who has been long active in Detroit’s preservation circles, including participation with the Friends of the Book Cadillac and four years as the Executive Director of Preservation Wayne.  Francis has been involved in many of Detroit’s recent preservation battles, and in our interview, shares the lessons from a few.  We talked specifically in some depth about the contrasting experiences of the former Madison-Lenox Hotel, which was demolished, and the Book Cadillac Hotel, which has become, as Francis put it, the “crown jewel” of Detroit’s downtown hotels.

We also discussed the different tools that preservation advocates can use, and whether preservation fights remain isolated battles, or are slowly changing the understanding of preservation as a lens and tool for re-making the entire city.  Listen to the interview HERE.

This post is a part of our November series on historic preservation, building rehab, and the triple bottom line.  During week one, we provided an overview of the argument for historic preservation, and last week we shared an interview with preservation advocate Michael Allen, about the relationship between preservation and other urban challenges, and how the Missouri tax credit has enabled preservation is St. Louis.

Photo of the restored Book Cadillac building by Brandy Baker for the Detroit News.

On a recent trip to St. Louis, my tour guides included Michael Allen, the detective, advocate, and blogger behind Ecology of Absence, a board member of Preservation Action, and the Director of the newly-formed Preservation Research Office.  Michael’s knowledge of the built environment of St. Louis is nothing less of encyclopedic–though unlike an encyclopedia, he takes immense and obvious pleasure in the small and large human dramas whose histories are told in buildings.

Michael seemed to point out a surprising number of communities in STL that have really been brought back to life by historic preservation efforts.  A big part of the reason is that Missouri has an extremely progressive historic preservation tax credit.  While the federal tax credit applies only to restoration efforts of buildings that are income-producing, the Missouri credit can be applied to non-income-producing buildings, i.e., homes.  This makes it possible for many middle-class homeowners to preserve

Listen to my interview with Michael HERE, for our conversation about the benefits of preservation as tied to a number of other urban challenges (e.g., can restored housing be high quality affordable housing?), the Missouri tax credit and its effects, and some new possibilities on the federal level for expanded tax credits that would help us all to preserve our urban fabric.

This post is a part of our November series on historic preservation, building rehab, and the triple bottom line.  Last week we provided an overview of the argument for historic preservation, and next week we’re taking the preservation conversation to Detroit. 

Photo, courtesy of Michael, shows him guiding a tour of the St. Louis Place neighborhood during Historic Preservation Week, May 2008.

Rehab is bringing some corners of our cities back into prosperity.  And I don’t mean the Amy Winehouse version–I’m talking about the rehabilitation of the building stock that we invested in 60, 80, or 100 years ago.

Oftentimes historic renovations seem to be the result of a nebulous culture of rehabbing, or good old-fashioned individual initiative.  But cities and states can tactically choose to embrace historic preservation as a strategy for revitalizing downtowns.  To start off our series, I’m posting some thoughts from the unofficial godfather of the current historic preservation movement, Donovan Rypkema. The bulletpoints below came from his 2007 presentation, “Sustainability, Smart Growth and Historic Preservation,” at the Historic Districts Council Annual Conference in New York.  (You can read the entire speech here.)

• Sustainable development is crucial for economic competitiveness.
• Sustainable development has more elements than just environmental responsibility.
• “Green buildings” and sustainable development are not synonyms.
• Historic preservation is, in and of itself, sustainable development.
• Development without a historic preservation component is not sustainable.

Rypkema believes that, in historic preservation lies at least a partial answer to a number of challenges.  Socially: these buildings are part of the urban fabric, our culture and what make each of our cities unique.  They also tend to be located in attractive clusters that draw urban populations.  Environmentally: tearing down an historic building to build new, no matter how “green” the new building is, is less sustainable than rehabbing the historic building.  With rehab, less waste is sent to the landfill, fewer new resources are used.  Economically:  50% of the cost of a new building is resources.  Conversely, 30% of rehab costs are spent on resources, and 70% on labor.  Rehabbing equals local job creation.  Additionally, money spent on rehab is likely to be spent within the local community, rather than on parts from a factory hundreds of miles away.

Over the remaining month, we’ll explore historic preservation strategies and how a culture of historic preservation should inform our approach to urban revitalization.

This post is a part of our November series on historic preservation, building rehab, and the triple bottom line.  Next week we’ll feature an interview with historic preservationist, Ecology of Absence blogger, and St. Louis man-about-town, Michael Allen.

Just keeping tabs on the occasional instance where people outside the GL region say nice things about us!

There’s this Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel piece on what Milwaukee can learn from Pittsburgh (which I am counting because it was written outside of Pittsburgh)–

and this download of a Preservation article on Detroit, entitled “Block by Block.”

Finally, while this isn’t technically a national press story, a big congratulations goes to Pittsburgh, which will be hosting the next G-20 summit in September.  Whatever you think of the G-20 politics, there are few better opportunities to either show off your city, or to use the spotlight to send a message.  Pittsburghers, what message will YOU be sending?

The mayor of Detroit is leaning towards demolition for the Lafayette Building.  I can’t see the value that one more vacant lot would add to downtown, rather than an historic vacant building that aches for redevelopment.  If you feel the same, please consider signing the online petition against demolitionm, and/or contacting Mayor Cockrel (kenneth.cockrel@detroitmi.gov).

On Valentine’s Day, historic preservation minded St. Louis residents came out for a “Love-In” at the former San Luis apartments, designed by modernist Charles Colbert, FAIA.  The unique, mid-century building is owned by the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and slated for demolition (it will be replaced by a parking lot).  Dedicated both to the preservation of modern classics and to the concept that vast parking lots destroy urban fabric, this group of demonstrators celebrated the San Luis in style.

You can find their press coverage, background, and some videos from the event (I encourage you to watch them for some inspiration–demonstrations can be creative and fun!) at Save the San Luis.  GLUEster Jeff Vines shared this love poem he wrote to the building.  All of our cities could use a little Valentine’s love; thanks STL for showing us how it’s done!

It’s Valentine’s Day and we have a flame to rekindle
So that’s why we’ve gathered here at Taylor & Lindell

She’s the space-age beauty of the CWE
That tall sexy building called the San Luis

She’s got style, she’s got wit
And a wraparound driveway that just won’t quit

Modern, sleek, and contemporary
She wasn’t built to be temporary

Her retro flair enhances our urban fabric
Like John McCain, she’s quite the maverick!

Since 1963, she has brightened our day
But the Archdiocese thinks she’s just in the way

“It’s a crappy old building”, say some, “Tear it down”
“It’s a pain in the ass to park my car in this town”

Clearly these people lack sophistication
They fail to imagine her grand restoration

With just a little love, she’d be luxurious
A surface parking lot? Uh uh, you surrrious?

It’s time for some divine intervention
To spread the gospel of parking lot prevention

If you’re too lazy to walk, then move out to Wentzville
And keep your hands off of our Hotel DeVille

This building is cool– we won’t let it fall
She’s our Cinderella, and she’ll be at the ball!

Photo by Toby Weiss, from Save the San Luis blog.

I’ve been meaning to post this article from the New York Times all week–though I was secretly hoping some Buffalonian would blog about it–on Buffalo’s singular architectural history (complete with slide show) and the efforts underway to preserve a few treasures in spite of economic scarcity.

The article lauds the preservation efforts as being inspired by true “civic pride,” rather than economic hunger.  In that respect, the efforts of historic preservationists could be a stand-in for almost any other effort underway in our cities.  In Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, isn’t civic pride at least one motivation for everything we GLUEsters do?  Maybe that’s the concept that binds the urban gardeners, the real estate developers, the education reformers, and the artist-activists together in this urban revitalization universe.

The article closes with this essential sentiment–that our cities are the testing ground for a more robust democracy:

But how these projects will be forged into a cohesive vision for the city’s future is less certain. The best-intentioned preservationists, however determined, can accomplish only so much. Often developers co-opt the achievements of these trailblazing individuals and nonprofit groups by dolling up historic neighborhoods for private gain. The city’s rough edges are smoothed over to satisfy the hunger for more tourist dollars. Shiny new convention centers and generic boutiques follow. Yet schools, roads, bridges and electrical and power lines continue to crumble.

Buffalo is an ideal testing ground for rethinking that depressing model. Its architectural heritage embodies an America that thought boldly about the future, but believed deeply in the city as a democratic forum. What’s needed now is to revive that experimental tradition.

Plans to save Old Tiger Stadium–the Tigers moved to Comerica Park in 1999–have slowly declined in scale and ambition. But the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, with the help of long-time Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell, is still fighting to preserve one wall of the Stadium, from dugout to dugout, as a nod to the history of the site. The City last week issued a reprieve to the group, giving them a few more months to raise the $15 million price tag of that preservation plan. Detroit may be able to find a balance here between making way for needed new development, and being grounded in a proud history. But it will unfortunately just come down to that $15 million, to be raised by a group for whom I can’t find a website.

Pat Clark in Pittsburgh forwarded this poignant photo testimonial to the old ballpark. There is something inefficient and about the way we are willing to pave over this history, in desperation for the next silver bullet development. I know we need the revenue, but I can’t help but think there’s a more creative solution.

I’m also struck by how little coverage this is getting in Detroit, perhaps due to issue fatigue? (Compare the Freep article linked above to this New York Times article from a month ago.) I’m struck by the closing sentence, a quote from Timothy McKay, head of the Greater Corktown Development Corporation. “This is an old city. But history here is discounted by a lot of people.”

Our history’s not all roses, but back me up–how can we know where we’re going if we don’t remember from where we came?

Michael Allen has been a passionate advocate for neighborhoods on St. Louis’ North Side for years. Sarah and I had the chance to spend an afternoon with him a few weeks ago when we were in town. In addition to having encyclopedic knowledge of virtually every building on the North Side, he maintains an inspiring hopefulness about what our cities can become, and how.

I was, of course, excited to find a recent articulation of that sentiment on his blog:

Without imagination, we couldn’t think through changing our own circumstances. Now, granted that some people have mighty fine circumstances and probably don’t want to imagine a change in the world that may benefit others. The rest of us, though, need to have the power to envision our neighborhoods and own lives improved physically, economically and spiritually. In St. Louis, imagination fuels the work of my neighbors in Old North St. Louis as much as it keeps developers like Craig Heller going. Sometimes it’s not acknowledged, and rarely gets political play, but we need imagination to make this city a better place….

And later:

Change without imagination is tantamount to continued loss of opportunities. We can’t let the technocrats plan our future through financing formulas. Without a vision — a dream — of what shape we want St. Louis to be in, we won’t be able to resist or even influence the people whose dull plans are despoiling the landscape that once was an international city.

Thanks, Michael. Keep fighting the good fight.