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Thread: Preservation vs. Demolition

  1. #1
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    Preservation vs. Demolition

    Read this on a planning website and thought I'd share- its a topic this board has talked about and seems to be an ongoing controversy in Buffalo. We'd be wise to listen. I'm just listing one of the ten, the remainder can be found at the link below.

    Making Better Places: Ten City Design Resolutions

    6. Save That Building

    How many buildings do we need to tear down before we learn our lesson? Almost every city that deeply regrets the 1960s destruction of its 1900s structures is happily permitting the 2000s destruction of 1940s structures. Need the march of time only confirm our current ignorance? Historic preservation may be our best way to respect our ancestors, but it is justified on economic terms alone. Don Rypkema reminds us that in market economies, it is the differentiated product that commands a monetary premium. This is why cities like Savannah and Miami Beach can point to historic preservation as the key ingredient in recent booms. It isn't always easy to find a productive use for an empty old building, but tearing it down makes that outcome impossible. In these cases, remember the old adage: "don't do something; just stand there!"

    Link:
    http://www.planetizen.com/oped/item.php?id=141

  2. #2
    moonshine
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    Don Rypkema reminds us that in market economies, it is the differentiated product that commands a monetary premium
    Not necessarily! A differentiated product will only command a monetary premium if the differentiation adds value. For instance, an 800mhz computer is very different from the pervasive pentium 4, but you don't see people forking over extra money to buy an 800mhz dinosaur. Does the value of a company's product increase because they have offices in a historic building? In most cases, by choosing to occupy a historic building instead of a modern building, the company simply "differentiates" its cost struture, not its product. In other words, it costs more to produce the same product.

    It isn't always easy to find a productive use for an empty old building, but tearing it down makes that outcome impossible.
    The flipside is that waiting years to determine a use for a historical building has costs that may outweigh the overall benefits even if a use is found.

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    I think the point being argued is that historic buildings are assets that cannot be reproduced and make each city unique. Tearing them down in the name of progress isn't progress at all. Would you travel to Charlotte or Atlanta or Dallas to see their "world class modern architecture"? I doubt it. Maybe in 100 years if their cookie-cutter buildings still standing. Buffalo's problem is we like to tear down because a building is an "eyesore" and then we end up with shovel-ready parking lots. Yet, we never see the shovels. Leave them standing until market conditions improve. See Psychiatric Center and Central Terminal as prime examples. You'd rather see Richardson's complex destroyed because its costing money to leave it standing?

  4. #4
    moonshine
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    Wow, I just read the entire article. Scary stuff, but exactly the same crap being taught in urban planning departments at our local universities. Maybe the planners should put down the pretense of markets and capitalism and get on with their goal of urban socialism.

    The fact that this guy is a director for the NEA severly harms his credibility in my eyes. Imagine, a huge government beaurocracy advocating more centralized planning and control over your life. Go figure.

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    ^^^Suburban resident speaking....go figure.

  6. #6
    moonshine
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    You'd rather see Richardson's complex destroyed because its costing money to leave it standing?
    I'd rather see it sold to an individual or corporation regardless of their plans for the building. And, I would fully support their private propety rights to knock it down if that is what they chose.

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    Thank God the Supreme Court has upheld zoning and other land use controls! I'm sure you'd be the first one up in arms if your neighbor opened a bar or halfway house next door to you. But hey: "Private Property Rights!"

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    Well...
    I am ALL for preserving archtecturally significant buildings.
    HOWEVER we have all seen preservationists go overboard.
    The example that comes to mind is when Heintz and Weber (the people that make Weber's mustard) relocated their plant several years ago.
    Their old plant was a turn of the century Antiquated, Obsolete, piece of junk down around Louisianna? or Ohio Street?
    Well, some preservationists didn't want th building torn down. Admittedly, it held no significiant value save for the fact that Weber's has a spot in the heart of most Buffalonians.
    One Preservationist (I wish I rememebr the guy's name) was quoted in the Paper as saying " I remember driving by the building as a kid. It was so special, knowing that Weber's was made in there".
    My thought then, and now, was Who Does That Guy Think He Is that he can dictate what a business owner can, or should, do, simply based on his childhood memories???
    Instaed of praising the Weber's people for relocating within the City limits, they were ostracized for selling their building!!!

    It's things like this that give preservationists a bad name.

  9. #9
    moonshine
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    I'm sure you'd be the first one up in arms if your neighbor opened a bar or halfway house next door to you. But hey: "Private Property Rights!"
    There was no need for that. Don't make assumptions. If someone opened a bar of halfway house across the street I would move if I didn't like it. Crying for government intervention is not an option.

    Actually, I wouldn't mind a bar opening across the street. The neighbor is an a**hole and it would be very convenient when the wife is in one of her moods.

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    Rising is right on the money. Not everything can be, or should be, saved. Preservationists need to pick their battles more wisely. You would think the city and the preservation groups would be on the same page, yet its one crisis after another. Masiello promises more oversight of historic properties, yet negligence continues. Fighting to save every building over 40 years old makes absolutely no sense. But if the building is in a historic district, then there should be limits on changes and a high threshold set for demolitions. Outside of districts there really needs to be a list of structures that have the same protections. Of course, what should be saved is always subjective. As far as property rights, if you buy a (significant) historic structure there is some responsibility to protect that asset for future generations and the greater good. Even the federal government recognizes the importance of preservation with their tax credit program. And belatedly, the city is kind of joining the effort by abating taxes for improvements/renovations to properties. Philadelphia did the same thing to encourage investment in the city. Even if the value of the property went up 100 percent after a renovation, you were still taxed at the old level and the increase was phased in over 10 years.

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    The budget mess is giving me a headache....time to change the subject and talk about good news. This is a big win for preservation....



    'Urban village' project ready for construction

    A $3 million project to turn a string of derelict buildings on the 800 block of Main Street into an "urban village" has been taken out of limbo.

    The project to convert the properties to 29 apartments and five commercial spaces was put on hold last fall when the state Office of Historic Preservation raised concerns about plans for interior demolitions. First Amherst Development and state preservation officials have now reached agreement on a redevelopment strategy that will save interior elements where possible.

    Mayor Anthony M. Masiello and First Amherst signed a memorandum of agreement at Thursday's Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency meeting that should lead to a spring construction start.


  12. #12
    Member Linda_D's Avatar
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    WCP, I read the entire article, so here are my thoughts.

    Generally, I side with preservationists, but only up to a point. The building, especially business buildings such as those in a downtown area or old manufacturing district, needs more than just historical/architectural significance. If it has significant structural faults, is contaminated or is not feasible to convert to something else, then it probably should come down if somebody has a better use for the area. Sorry, but business or manufacturing/warehouse districts are not museums, and most of these old buildings, even after renovation, cannot meet the needs of many businesses.

    As for the rest of the article, it's mostly typical, urban planner clap-trap. Urban planners always hate cars, think "street life" is great, and despise real green space. They think everyone wants to live over a coffee shop or down the block from a bar, and they consider suburbs the Public Enemy #1.

    Why? Because the 'burbs are the antithesis of the planner's ideal and they always win. Obviously, they must be "cheating".
    That most Americans want to own a detached, single-family home with a yard and a garage in a quiet, residential neighborhood where the loudest noises after 9pm are the Smith's barking dog and the Jones' son coming home on his motorcycle is beside the point. Also beside the point is that Americans love the automobile, have loved it since the first Model T rolled off the assembly line after WWI, and are highly unlikely to trade it in for a seat on a bus or railcar. Giving people what they want in housing and transportation rather than what they should want is definitely cheating!

    That the most viable urban neighborhoods are those that most resemble the suburbs is not accidental. The 'burbs weren't an evil invented after WWII like many planners pretend; they were simply extensions of residential neighborhoods beyond the city limits. The "suburbs" of the pre-WWI era make up much of the fine Victorian homes in the good neighborhoods of the Upper West Side. The "suburbs" of the era between the world wars include North Buffalo and University Heights. People have been moving out and away from the central downtown area since the Civil War.

    The sad fact is that urban planners are completely out of touch with the American people and ignorant of American history, which is why their grand designs to remake cities into their pet visions of perfect pre-WWII paradises always fail to catch on and expand -- not just in Buffalo -- but in almost all cities. It's hard to recreate what never was.

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    I think you're on to something. Americans do have a choice and almost all pick the 'burbs. Then they all cry about traffic, pollution, and loss of open space. Funny isn't it? This is from Architecture Magazine- even Buffalo made the article! We're now a "shell of our former self." Something to be proud of....


    Architects, environmentalists, and planners should apply their energies—not their contempt and condemnation—to America's suburbs.


    JANUARY 12, 2005 -- For the better part of the past 50 years, urbanists, planners, and environmentalists have railed against suburbia and the dreaded trend of "sprawling" outward from old city cores. Wistfully, some have predicted the imminent doom of the outer ring, first during the energy crisis of the 1970s. Today's more rabid opponents of sprawl, like author James Howard Kunstler, see this as the time "to get out of suburbia while you can," foreseeing the decline of this much-detested American way of life. Others focus their sights on the so-called "booming" market for inner-city housing, predicting a massive wave of young hipsters, empty-nesters, and other sophistos, who will help developers package underdeveloped urban stretches of middle America into mini-Manhattans.

    Yet in reality, both the notions of suburban decline or a big-time downtown revival are delusional. Since 1950, 93 percent of all metropolitan growth has taken place in the suburbs. More importantly, this pattern continued during the energy crisis and, despite the downtown hype, is showing no real sign of slacking off.

    The biggest reason for this triumph is not the "conspiracy" of big oil and freeway builders oft-cited by enviro-activists, but the simple desires of ordinary people—not only in America but in most rich countries—to own a piece of land, however humble, where they may live in relative comfort and peace. It reflects what the 1960s Los Angeles urbanist and Italian immigrant Edgardo Contini labeled "the universal aspiration."

    This aspiration has not eliminated the traditional urban core so much as greatly circumscribed its relevance. Some cities, like Chicago, retain considerable vibrancy and economic importance. Most others, however, have either collapsed into mere shells of their former selves—St. Louis, Cleveland, and Buffalo come to mind—while some, such as Boston and San Francisco, have reinvented themselves as largely ephemeral cities of entertainment and concourse, serving a largely elite, posteconomic constituency.

    Facts often prove a significant balm to delusion. Over the last 15 years, some places witnessed a small yet welcome surge in inner-city residents, but, viewed as part of all the new housing units in the country, it remains tiny. In fact, all the growth predicted recently for the 30 top U.S. downtowns through 2010 turns out to be less than half the suburban growth of greater Seattle during the 1990s. And in spite of the recent talk of Houston's downtown housing surge, trends in new permits show that the entire inner ring of the city—extending well beyond the central core—accounted for barely 6 percent of the city's total new units, a tiny fraction compared to the outer suburban rings.

    Since 2000, these trends seem to be accelerating, according to Brookings Institution demographer William H. Frey. Many cities that are seen as harbingers of a dense urban future—San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis—have actually lost population since the millennium, following some gains in the 1990s. Hopefully, this decline will reverse in coming years, but even the most optimistic projections for the inner cores are not even remotely close to those on the periphery.

    To many urbanists, the rise of suburbia represents the death-knell of the city. Yet if the traditional city has lost its once overpowering relevance, it still has much to teach the suburbs. Sprawl has given people and families a strategy for adapting to urban dysfunction—antibusiness governments, unworkable schools, lack of green space—but it has not always addressed other issues adequately, notably the need for community, identity, sacred space, and a closer relation between workplace and home life.

    Creating a better suburban future is a noble—and potentially very profitable—calling. Suburbia is maturing and evolving all around America, as seen in reviving suburban downtowns such as Naperville, Illinois, or in brash new "suburban villages" being built in places like Houston's Fort Bend County or in California's Santa Clarita Valley. It can be seen in the new arts venues in places like Gwinnett County, Georgia, and in the construction of new and often-striking churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples in the vast periphery.

    This critical work will do much to define the 21st-century modern city and to attempt to meet the challenges laid out by the early visionaries of suburbia—men like Ebenezer Howard or H.G. Wells—who saw the move to the periphery as a chance to build "a new civilization." And it's a project worthy of the creative energies of architects, environmentalists, and planners—not their contempt and condemnation.

  14. #14
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    A crime was committed when Paladino demolished the Harbor Inn on Chicago and Ohio streets. Not only was the builsing unique in style it was of historical importence as well.
    It was built in the 1860's Grover Cleveland spoke there when he ran for mayor to a crowd of canal and lake sailors and Irish dock workers in what was the begining of sceducing ethinic voting blocks in Buffalo ( a practice that still holds sway today).
    It was an active sailors boarding house untill the 1940's and a working tavern untill he bought it in the 1990's.
    He outbid the people who wanted to buy it and keep it operating. He then boarded it up hoping they would buy it from him at a profit for the new proposed zoo.
    When the zoo proposition fell thru he let it fall into abandon and disrepair.
    Because it is cheaper to pay taxes on empty land he was issued a permit to demolish it at 4pm on a Friday from the city permits and licensce Commisioner himself and began demolishion at 4:30 pm that same day.
    All before any preservstionist or concearned citizen could object and if any one tried, well, city hall was closed untill Monday.
    Now in hindsight, with that area set to take off it was a bad deal for all off us.
    "If you want to know what God thinks of money just look at the people he gave it to."

    By the way, what happened to biker? I miss the old coot.

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    Any building with historical or architectural significance is worth saving IMO. Thank God Linda isn't on the Preservation Board. All the owners claim they need to tear down their buildings for a better use. Surprise! Most are still vacant lots. If they bought in a preservation district, I have no sympathy. If their property is outside a district but eligible for listing but isn't, I'd entertain their case for demo. The threshold for permitting demolition needs to be raised.

    As for our love afair with the auto....unless alternate fuels take hold, the love afair is heading towards annulment. :-)

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