Historic Preservation
THE FOUNDATION OF SYNERGICITY
Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
FIGURE 3.1. The Cadillac Building, designed by Wm. A. Balsch Architects and completed in 1919, in the Midtown Alley district of St. Louis, Missouri. It includes Egyptian-influenced columns and ornamental motifs and has been placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
What is the first step in making synergicity? Historic preservation. It is the foundation and initial step to redeveloping the postindustrial district in the American city. Rehabilitating the existing buildings, streets, and open space is not only practical; it is sustainable both from an economic and environmental point of view. It creates an aesthetically pleasing environment that utilizes the best attributes of the district — its sense of place. Within the context of the postindustrial district, historic preservation is best defined as the adaptive use and rehabilitation of existing historic (and even not-so-historic buildings) and structures, transforming them for new and pertinent uses that will facilitate Urban Metabolism and economic activity. Historic preservation of the postindustrial district can achieve an all-encompassing change in the perception of the district from a once industrial and now neglected area of the city to a new, sustainable, and viable economic engine for the city (fig. 3.1).
Historic preservation provides significant economic benefits for redevelopment. It often provides the critical momentum for urban redevelopment to occur. It is financially feasible, and it produces readily appreciable results. Preservation allows developers and entrepreneurs to concentrate their efforts in small areas of a postindustrial district in a strategic manner. Historic preservation provides both small-scale project opportunities and largescale policy tools to make development a reality in postindustrial districts. Redeveloping the city’s neglected postindustrial districts can restore livability to the moribund downtown, and the city can become vital and productive again. This is the essence of historic preservation at the urban level. Postindustrial districts in cities are the obvious place for the healing process in cities to begin; they are inherently intact, and they are adaptable. These districts are comprised of robust buildings that were built to last by previous generations. They are built with craftsmanship that can rarely be duplicated today. When it is done correctly, historic preservation in commercial development recognizes the built heritage as a tangible and valuable asset.
Historic preservation provides significant environmental benefits in SynergiCity. Along with high-craft industrial buildings, which were built before the Second World War, are often comprised of old-growth timbers, high-quality masonry (brick, ashlar stone, and rubble), and cast iron and steel. In today’s economy, the craft-based building methods and materials used for turn-of-the-century buildings are expensive and, consequently, tend to be reserved for the restoration of landmark historic buildings. Because their materials and robust structures often make them too valuable to discard, existing buildings should be maintained and transformed for new uses whenever possible. In order for SynergiCity to begin in postindustrial districts, the current policy of developing urban areas must change from one that views the postindustrial district as a collection of abandoned and underutilized buildings to one that views the district as a granary of older, rehabilitated existing structures and new buildings that can provide a variety of economic uses for a diverse group of entrepreneurs.
It is important to remember what the noted urban theorist Jane Jacobs said fifty years ago in her landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, where she made a compelling case for the need of “aged” buildings in the American city.” For her, there was a difference between “old” buildings and “aged” ones. “Old” conveys the idea of the expensive museum-piece restoration building; while “aged” she defines as “the good lot of plain, ordinary, low-value old buildings, including some rundown old buildings” (Jacobs, 1961, 187). She felt that these buildings provided the needed venue for the diversity of uses and the wide array of enterprises that allow cities to be not only economically viable but also interesting to experience. From an economic point of view, this approach is particularly useful in the postindustrial district, which already has enough density of building stock and infrastructure to be transformed into something useful again. Preservationists have always seen the benefits of transforming entire districts of a historic city; specifically, preservationists have been successful in redeveloping central business districts, commonly referred to as “Main Street Projects.” Through the past 30 years of redeveloping Main Street, preservationists have learned that redevelopment does not happen immediately; in fact, it is a long and arduous process that begins with small concentrated project redevelopment efforts and leads to an eventual completion of the entire district. The key to redevelopment is developing a successful economic balance that allows both the small developer and the large-scale developer to work together toward the common goal of historic rehabilitation and adaptive use. As Jacobs’s description implies, using “aged” buildings should be one way for diverse group of entrepreneurs to thrive and become productive. This balance is the key to making SynergiCity happen.
The challenge in using “aged” buildings is finding ones that are spatially flexible so as to be easily adaptable. The inherent flexibility for adaptability found in historic warehouses and factories make them a logical choice for new businesses to use. They possess the best attributes of both aged and new: lower rents and flexible use. As Jacobs (1961) so eloquently stated, “Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings” (Jacobs, 1961, 188). She was clearly ahead of her time; 35 years after The Death and Life of Great American Cities was published, preservationists in the 1990s began to take note that historic resources not only have cultural value but also economic value.1 These districts of intact buildings, underutilized infrastructure capacity, and distinct architectural character can be an important part of the economic development of cities, especially in postindustrial districts.
Preservationists have long recognized that preserving the built heritage inevitably leads to preserving the environment. In 1978, the late Supreme Court justice William J. Brennan Jr. stated it best in the landmark Penn Central Transportation Co. et al. v. New York City Co., et al.: “Historic conservation is but one aspect of the much larger problem, basically an environmental one, of enhancing — or perhaps developing for the first time — the quality of life for people” (quoted in Mays 2003: 183).
This is especially true when the postindustrial district is transformed into SynergiCity. Brownfield remediation is addressed, and planners, architects, and developers take stock of what the district can offer — useable space that is built out of quality materials located adjacent to the central business district of the city.
Reusing materials in place through adaptive use of existing buildings is an obvious way to keep building debris out of landfills. Currently, one-third of all debris in waste accounted for in municipal landfills is debris from demolition (Orange County, N.C. Office of Solid Waste Management 2010). Were the amount of debris from a historic warehouse or factory demolition taken into account, that amount would surely increase.
Utilizing existing industrial buildings and capitalizing on their material value is but one way historic preservation in postindustrial cities is an environmental solution; utilizing the existing infrastructure that supports these buildings is another. In most twentieth-century industrial cities, especially in the Midwest, wide streets and alleys, broad sidewalks, and substantial water and sewer lines supported these districts. The underutilized and abandoned factory or warehouse often has accompanying it the underutilized street, railroad line, and waterfront. Like the abandoned buildings, these resources are in place and have been paid for and depreciated by the municipality. The broad streets found in the postindustrial districts can once again become viable not only for automotive traffic but, most notably, for pedestrian use. The abandoned rail line can be reused for mass transit; even the waterway can shuttle people across areas of the city. All this begins to present a new sustainable solution for transportation in the city that reuses the existing infrastructure of the postindustrial district. In order for historic preservation to fulfill its ultimate sustainable potential in SynergiCity, every element of the district must be revitalized — the historic (and not-so-historic) buildings, the existing streets, plazas, rail lines, and waterfronts. But we must do more than simply restore historic infrastructure; we should consider ways in which it can be transformed to become effective systems for environmentally responsive solutions for the city. Storm sewer lines need to be reworked to effectively dissipate or reuse storm water. Rain gardens and filter strips are just two ways of ecologically containing and filtering gray water that can be recycled for nonpotable uses (fig. 3.2). Waterfronts and ports should be restored in ways that allow the natural habitat to become part of the urban environment. Biomass fuel can be used in existing cogeneration plants, such as the one in Lowertown in St. Paul, Minnesota. Building new infrastructure does not have to be the inevitable answer for postindustrial redevelopment; historic infrastructure in most midwestern cities was built to last and can be retrofitted for new uses with sustainable systems and materials.
FIGURE 3.2. Rendering of sustainable urban infrastructure improvements with filter strip plantings to filter gray water and prevent runoff. (Courtesy of U.S. Pipe/Wheland Foundry and LA Quatra Bonci Associates/Edward Dumont)
Adding to the sustainable benefits of preserving the postindustrial district are the intangible aesthetic benefits that come with the patina of age. “Character,” an often difficult element to describe, is something that historic preservationists care deeply about, and once restored it becomes highly marketable. Cobblestone or brick streets, continuous brick facades with large windows and steel structures, such as water tanks, conveying systems, and even smokestacks, provide environments that are distinctive and interesting to experience. Despite the fact that these districts often possess immense buildings, they often are built at a human scale that promotes pedestrian movement more than vehicular movement. All of this often provides visually interesting areas in which to work and live (fig. 3.3).
The abandoned postindustrial districts have always been an attractive venue for innovation in cities, and part of the reason is that these areas were usually affordable to either purchase or lease. But affordability is only one aspect of their success; more and more occupants and developers are recognizing their environmental benefits. Located in or near central cores of American cities, their location has broad appeal for entrepreneurs and city dwellers who wish to leave the automobile behind and walk and bike more. City dwellers throughout the United States are taking note of what the city has to offer and are deciding to play a part in it and have a more active urban lifestyle. Rehabilitated postindustrial districts present a distinctive choice in urban living. Aesthetically, these aged buildings possess great character; their streets are pedestrian friendly, and they engage significant waterways that were originally an integral part of industrial operations in these districts but now can become a recreational amenity. These attributes — historic architectural character, humane sidewalks, and distinct waterfronts — enhance the quality of life in cities, which is a major factor for attracting both talent and investment to cities today. When all of these attributes are taken into consideration during the planning and design process, the perception of the postindustrial district begins to change from a collection of abandoned buildings and streets to an actual place with both a purpose and an identity — a SynergiCity.
FIGURE 3.3. Redevelopment of the New Orleans Warehouse District has maintained the historic character of the street with cobblestone pavers and ornate street lamps. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
FIGURE 3.4. Artist’s studio in the Murray Building in the Warehouse District of Peoria, Illinois. Artists are often the first to move into large warehouses and revitalize former industrial districts. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
The positive perception of change in the postindustrial district has in the past been accomplished by the artistic vanguard, who have been primarily attracted to postindustrial buildings because they provided affordable space to either rent or purchase (fig. 3.4). As artists flourish in these spaces, entrepreneurship begins to happen that leads to economic and social yields for the entire district. When considering all of the benefits that postindustrial redevelopment can offer — economic, environmental, and aesthetic — another benefit becomes apparent: the ability to provide an environment in which diverse entrepreneurial ventures can coexist and support each other. In redeveloping historic postindustrial districts and transforming them into SynergiCity, it is important to reconsider Jacobs’s idea in The Death and Life of Great American Cities about the need to mix “yields.”
High-Yield, Middling-Yield, Low-Yield, and No-Yield
When looking at reinventing the postindustrial city, it is important to remember some of the aspects of vibrant American cities that Jacobs wrote about fifty years ago. It is easy to dismiss her ideas as being obsolete or as having been hashed out through the past five decades by generations of urban planners, architects, developers, social scientists, and so on; but when one revisits these ideas in the context of the redeveloping of decayed postindustrial districts, many of Jacobs’s ideas cannot be so readily dismissed. In chapter 10 of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she identifies four types of income-producing business ventures that are required for a city district or street to thrive: high-yield, middling-yield, low-yield, and no-yield. Jacobs was very straightforward in defining “yields” as simply being the yield or economic profitability produced by a specific business or social venture. “High-yield” is self-explanatory; these are businesses and industries that are profitable and employ a large number of people of varying skill sets. “Middling-yield” refers to predominantly servicebased businesses, perhaps architects and engineers or lawyers and accountants, all of whom provide a vital service and typically employ a limited number of people. “Low-yield” refers to restaurants and boutiques, corner stores, and small retail. “No-yield” can be best described as the public service contribution to the city — parks, recreational facilities, and cultural and educational facilities. Jacobs argued that “No-yield” is vital for a society to exist. “No-yield” can also describe the creative involvement in the postindustrial district; it may not be financially profitable, but necessary all the same. This includes artists’ studios and galleries but also the music hall, the dancing school, and the local playhouse. “Middling-yield” and “low-yield” businesses, such as antique shops, exotic restaurants, and art studios, were dismissed as part of fringe culture fifty years ago; now, they are considered integral facets of the urban experience and are places people want to go and enjoy. Today, these business ventures help define heritage tourism in large cities and small towns throughout the country; most of us expect to experience these businesses in older buildings, not in commercial strip shopping centers, suburban malls, or office research parks (Rypkema 1998). A healthy mix of all yields is necessary for a city district to thrive. Although it is conceivable to create a new city district of new buildings that embraces economic diversity found in older mixed-yield districts, it is highly unlikely due to the high cost of new construction. Moreover, “aged” buildings in a city district have an intangible asset: a “grit” that is best described as character from age. They provide a distinctive identity that is not easily replicated and differentiates one city district from another (plate 3). City districts need to have some “grit” in order for people experiencing them to feel connected to the place and its history.
THE OFFICE RESEARCH PARK
During the past fifty years, innovation-based enterprises moved away from urban industrial districts. Cities and regional authorities planned and built places that separated high-yield enterprises from middling, low-, and no-yield ones. At the time Jacobs was writing The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a new type of urban design typology was being developed: the office research park. The objective for this new development typology was to provide talented people with the space needed to produce at the highest yield possible. Large tracts of forest land, such as North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park or Boston’s Route 128, were developed for stand-alone buildings in office parks built to suit high-tech companies such as IBM and Burroughs. Businesses, state governments, and municipalities all shared common goals and motives in these developments. For government leaders, the incentive was to capture the economic and intellectual windfall of the leading research universities in their region. They wanted to keep the best and the brightest newly graduated research talent in areas like Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. They were also interested in having successful companies such as IBM relocate significant portions of their operations and invest in their regions as well. It is important to understand that the success of these parks was the result of their proximity to major research universities, not because they were inherently designed to spark entrepreneurship. It can be said that research parks design is actually a hindrance to entrepreneurship.
That hindrance can be best described as the automobile. Research parks were built solely around the use of the automobile; they were built adjacent to highways and were surrounded by acres of surface parking on cheap undeveloped land. Occupants of these parks became isolated and were bound to only do what the park was built for. Where could one do the routine chores of the day such as pick up dry cleaning or visit the dentist? Not in the research park. Where could one enjoy exotic cuisine or visit a boutique? Not in the research park. And where could chance encounters occur where possible fruitful business ideas could flourish? Not in the single-purposed research park. Anyone who wanted to enjoy any of the mundane but necessary experiences of everyday living would have to drive in an automobile to urban areas where these businesses were located, most often in historic areas of the city.
Planners and developers of research parks recognized this problem 20 years ago, as a new generation of skilled talent began to complain about the lack of service (and life) found in the research park. Developers began to build into research parks restaurants, day care facilities, walking and biking paths, and social spaces; all of this was intended to introduce other uses and business services into the park. But these efforts have produced lackluster results. The Research Park of the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, is a good example of these newer and “more diverse” planning initiatives. Located literally in a green field (actually on a one-hundred-acre tract that was originally used as experimental agricultural land), this park was built in 2001 to promote collaboration with high-tech engineering and computer companies, large-scale manufacturing (such as Caterpillar and John Deere), and the university’s College of Engineering and College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. The park was planned with both the concepts of “new urbanism” and “sustainability” in mind. Along with its eight buildings, it has biking/running paths, ponds for indigenous fauna and wildlife, and a high-tech hotel and conference center with a moderately upscale restaurant. After its first decade in service, it’s difficult to call the park a success. As of 2011, the park continues to be subsidized by the University of Illinois; space has not been completely filled, and tenants have come and gone. Moreover, the region has yet to see the economic activity it was led to believe would happen after the park became fully operational.
There are many reasons for this park’s underwhelming performance. Many of them are outside the realm of architecture or historic preservation, but one problem is the park’s lack of a mixture of high-, medium-, low-, and no-yield enterprises. Entrepreneurship greatly benefits from what is available in places that have economic diversity. Creative people are not always productive in single-use districts, and it is becoming apparent that successful collaboration that results in productive economic ventures does not always come from one group of like-minded people; it can come from a number of different-minded ones. Office buildings are not always where innovations occur. As former Andy Warhol Museum director Tom Sokolowski wryly observed: “great art was never created in a museum” (Ravensbergen 2008). The rehabilitated and reinvented postindustrial city can be the place where diverse economic activity can occur and where innovation can happen.
Today, innovation or creativity is not necessarily relegated to the university campus or the research park. As Richard Florida notes in the Great Reset, today’s economy is based on creativity, and creativity flourishes in dense urban areas. Moreover, Florida states that the new workforce of the innovation economy will become more mobile, basically going where they are needed; if this is true, then the anonymous places found in the research park seem to offer a dismal future for the next generation of innovators and perhaps not the best use of public and private funds (Florida 2010). The next factories of innovation should be located in the place of first factories of innovation — the postindustrial landscape of our cities. Postindustrial districts such as Peoria’s warehouse district are ideal places for this to happen — for the new innovation economy to emerge from the old and for ideas to emerge from a mixing of yields: SynergiCity.
Small Projects Leading to Big Ideas: Preservation and Project Phasing
With the immense amount of unused and neglected buildings and streets that survive, the challenge of reinvention of the postindustrial district is daunting. Where does one begin the long journey from derelict factories for low-tech industrial production to the twenty-first-century factories of innovation? The answer is simple: preservation. The field of historic preservation has three effective tools for redevelopment: a system for identifying buildings and districts for rehabilitation, the National Register of Historic Places; a methodology for redeveloping historic resources, the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation; and an incentive for redevelopment in federal, state, and in some cases local rehabilitation income tax credits. Together, these tools retain the valuable historic and cultural assets of our built environment and can reinvigorate depressed historic areas of cities. More important, historic preservation development refocuses private investment into areas of the city with existing and often robust infrastructure. For the developer, it brings the best bang for the buck; it allows new commercial, manufacturing, and residential space to be developed in a quicker and more cost-effective manner. Finally, historic preservation development provides a feasible and practical way to phase development. Noted historic preservation economist Donovan Rypkema (1998) reiterates Jacobs’s assertions about redeveloping “aged” districts but also proposes a simple and direct way of implementing redevelopment by stating that preservation is often an effective early step in downtown revitalization:
The creation of a National Register historic district is, nevertheless, a frequent early action taken in a community’s economic development strategy — particularly in the downtown. Why is this? There appear to be two reasons: 1) National Register status permits the use of the historic rehabilitation tax credit which can substantially improve the economic return for an individual investor; and 2) being awarded National Register listing gives a community self-confidence and a sense of unique character and presents the opportunity to begin planning the economic future of the community.
The preservation-based strategy for postindustrial redevelopment is not new and has been successfully implemented in the Midwest; successful redevelopment has occurred in a number of midwestern cities, but one city truly stands out when it comes to successfully redeveloping its postindustrial heritage: Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Lowertown District redevelopment was the brainchild of Saint Paul mayor Frank Latimer, who realized that the abandoned and decayed lower industrial section of the city was in dire need of redevelopment. In 1974, Latimer created the Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation. Through the tireless work of its long-term director, Weiming Lu, an initial investment of a $10 million grant from the McKnight Foundation has produced nearly a billion dollars of urban redevelopment, turning the Lowertown Warehouse District into Saint Paul’s Urban Village.
Lowertown was not a grand large-scale urban development project; it started small, with private developers adapting former warehouse buildings such as the Market House condominiums and Artspace, who developed the Tilsner Warehouse into the Tilsner Artists’ Cooperative. Market House, developed in 1983, was one of the first warehouse buildings in St. Paul to be converted into loft condominiums (fig. 3.5). The building has a central atrium and large rooftop deck with 58 units within the residential portion of the building. The Tilsner Artists’ Cooperative was developed when the building was in an advanced state of decay; windows were broken, the roof leaked, and many regarded the building as a haven for derelicts. But the hulking Richardson Romanesque masonry building had a robust structure, and its nearly 140,000 square feet of usable space was rehabilitated at a total project cost of $6.5 million — $46 per square foot. The adaptive use of this warehouse added 66 live/work units to Lowertown for artists and entrepreneurs. Today, Lowertown boasts over 2,000 residents, most of whom are artists and entrepreneurs. There are restaurants, markets, and boutiques, all of which are within walking distance, and the entire district is lively. The success of this incremental development, which spanned a period of 30 years, has now led to a broader vision for what Lowertown can be. In 2004, the Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation commissioned Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects of Seattle to produce an “urban village” document for the next stage of Lowertown’s development. The plan calls for linking the predominantly artists’ district to the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, redeveloping the riverfront into a public and environmentally sensitive park, and the construction of an intermodal light rail transit system that will connect Saint Paul with neighboring Minneapolis using the old Union Depot as the terminal station. Currently, the transit line is being built, and it would not have been possible without the successful historic adaptive-use warehouse initiative (Lu 2010).2 Lowertown proves that phasing of small projects based on a larger, regional vision can produce successful outcomes. It also demonstrates how preservation can be the catalyst for the redevelopment.
FIGURE 3.5. The Market House Condominiums in St. Paul, Minnesota, directly to the north of the St. Paul Farmer’s Market and one of the first warehouse renovations in the historic Lowertown redevelopment district in 1983. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
The redevelopment of the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham, North Carolina, is another outstanding example of the benefits of phased development gained by combining historic buildings with new uses (fig. 3.6). American Tobacco is a registered historic site with roots in the American Tobacco Factory established in the 1800s. The American Tobacco Campus is located beside the Durham Bulls Triple-A baseball park, adjacent to the new 2,800-seat performing arts center and bordered by the highly traveled state route 147. The campus features an on-site YMCA, public green space, biking trails, and five restaurants. American Tobacco is home to some of the most prominent businesses in the region, including the nationally recognized public broadcasting station WUNC Radio. The area continues to undergo renovation and eventually will include 380 residential units, additional commercial office space, and 40,000 square feet of retail and restaurants. Its design and landscaping has collected industry awards for Best Mixed Use Development, Best Renovated Commercial Property, and Best Redevelopment Project. The combination of historic buildings with modern urban chic is unlike any office space in the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle (American Tobacco 2010).
FIGURE 3.6. Aerial view of the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham, North Carolina.
The American Tobacco campus is an outstanding example of a phased development that adapts historic buildings to new uses. (Courtesy of Belk Architecture)
Preservation + Sustainability = SynergiCity
Sustainability was not yet a buzzword in American culture when Jane Jacobs and Donovan Rypkema wrote about rebuilding and preserving cities. Both in the late 1950s and the early 1990s the price of oil was affordable, and these writers were more concerned about preserving historic cities than environmental sustainability. But historic preservation supports the broad goals of sustainability far beyond energy conservation. It can be fair to say that “preservation is the ultimate recycling” of materials and buildings. Historic warehouses and factories have inherent material value and energy embedded in them. Materials discarded from streets and buildings once considered suitable only for landfills — old bricks, stone pavers, large timbers, and heavy wood planks — are now regarded as valuable and marketable resources for reuse. This can be seen in the Peoria Warehouse District, where an ice cream factory was transformed into live-work units and a milk can factory has been redeveloped into office space (fig. 3.7). All of this has proven to be highly successful and indeed sustainable.
Postindustrial rehabilitation is not the typical “gut” renovation, in fact, when it has been done successfully it transforms the existing space for a new use while simultaneously highlighting the architectural qualities that were inherent from its previous use, such as the tall spaces, use of oldgrowth timbers for structure, and quality masonry work. Moreover, they are virtually indestructible; the Murray Warehouse in Peoria is an example of this; originally built as a warehouse for storing whiskey, its concrete frame structure has only been minimally altered (partitioned off into artists’ lofts by its developer), and despite multiple roof failures and leaky windows, the structure remains sound.
Architecturally, the tall floor-to-ceiling heights are also a significant attribute of these structures; not only are these spaces aesthetically pleasing, they also allow retrofitting for new mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems to occur in a straightforward manner and have been part of the aesthetic for warehouse rehabilitation redevelopment for the past three decades. But more important, warehouse and industrial redevelopment demonstrates disassembly and reassembly design methodologies that have become a significant strategy for sustainable design. Butler Square in the Minneapolis Warehouse District is a nationally recognized example of disassembly and reassem bly design (plate 10). Originally built in 1906 for the Butler Brothers Company, a mail-order firm, the eight-story brick and timber frame warehouse was rehabilitated into Historic Butler Square in two phases, first by developer Charles Coyer in 1972 and then by James Binger in 1979. In both phases, the center sections of floors were removed in order to create two large skylight-lit atriums. The atriums became prime marketing points for leasing office spaces. Removing a limited amount of space and materials increased the real estate value of Butler Square. Today, Butler Square is credited with being the catalyst for the redevelopment of the Minneapolis Warehouse District.
Reusing and refurbishing historic material and components of warehouses and factories is now considered an attractive, if not sexy, aesthetic in midwestern cities. Nowhere is this truer than the new Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee’s Fifth Ward. Located across the Milwaukee River from the new Harley-Davidson Museum, this former firehouse has been transformed into an upscale, edgy hotel centered on the Harley-Davidson motorcycle enthusiast (plate 11). The deep brown finish of the large oak beams, the painted black brackets and supports, and the exposed brick walls set the right tone for the motorcycle patron who is decked out in black motorcycle leather jacket and chaps and enjoying the finest French wines. Here postindustrial is high-end, responding to an ever diverse American aesthetic of both design and architecture. But whether it is designing with the industrial fire doors of the Iron Horse Hotel or designing new live-work units that retain the original walk-in refrigeration vaults of the old Sealtest Ice Cream Factory in Peoria, it is very clear: valuable building materials are remaining in redeveloped industrial buildings and not ending up in the landfill. This point cannot be overstated; old-growth timbers, massive masonry walls, and large steel components can no longer be removed and discarded; they should be reused. This is where preservation and sustainability ideas converge.
FIGURE 3.7. Office interior of the former Sealtest Ice Cream Factory in the Peoria Warehouse District, developed by Pat Sullivan of the JP Companies, recycles old materials with new functions. (Courtesy of Paul J. Armstrong)
Reusing valuable materials and building components does not need to end at the building; in fact, the same reuse thinking should occur at the urban scale as well. Most postindustrial districts were built with a robust infrastructure in order to accommodate industrial operations. The streets of Peoria, Rockford, Milwaukee, and Saint Paul are quite wide, and some of them still retain their railroad tracks and cobblestone surfaces. These features can add to the overall character of the redeveloped district. Abandoned rail lines in the large alleys of Peoria or Milwaukee can once again be reused for transport, thereby reducing the need for the automobile. All of these ideas are both preservation based and sustainability based and can contribute to making an environment that is dynamic and memorable to experience.
Historic preservation values and sustainability converge in SynergiCity. It is in the postindustrial districts where material waste from construction can be minimized and infrastructure can be reinvented to improve the environment. Furthermore, it will be in the massive warehouses, with their twofoot exterior masonry walls, that the argument will be made that preserved historic buildings are more energy efficient. Architects and engineers will employ mechanical systems that utilize the thermal mass of the masonry walls for heating and the tall ceilings for cooling. Windows will be retrofitted with interior storm window systems that reduce their draftiness. All of this is already happening where postindustrial redevelopment is occurring.3
Social Capital and Historic Preservation: Bringing Creative Capital to SynergiCity
In “The People of Preservation: Preservationists as Social Capital,” the concluding chapter of Buying Time for Heritage, J. Myrick Howard points out the important role of preservation in building social capital in places. He refers to social capital as the building of social networks and the reciprocity and trust that arise from them. Social capital fuels the innovation economy through interpersonal relationships and idea-sharing dialogue between entrepreneurs and visionaries. Through his 30-plus years as executive director of Preservation North Carolina, Howard has come to the realization that preservation builds social capital. He states that the preservation of historic districts and historic cities is essentially a visionary endeavor. It requires a leap of immense faith and a tremendous amount of creativity. For Howard, there is nothing more powerful than the end result — the before-and-after picture of a rehabilitated building, street, and district. It is both tangible and conclusive.
This backward-forward vision coupled with a risk-taking spirit makes the preservation community a natural partner with the creative-entrepreneurial community. In historic places, more often than not, these two groups are one and the same. Both groups often share common goals: to make the most of the resources that are available and to live and work in a meaningful and dynamic environment. The potential of the social capital that preservationists bring to the table should not be dismissed by municipal governments; instead, it should be embraced. Historic preservation is a civic-minded, community-building endeavor (Howard 2007).
In order for historic preservation to make an impact in SynergiCity, preservationists will need to bring their talents and vision to the planning table and work hand in hand with economists, planners, architects, landscape architects, engineers, and government officials. They must realize the environmental challenges of brownfield remediation and strive to strike a balance between the needs of a city’s urban systems and natural systems. Furthermore, preservationists will need to look beyond their traditional role of interpreting history through the lens of the built landscape and begin to see that historic resources can have great economic productive potential as well. Historic preservation has long been a field that values the historic environment as a cultural resource; now it is time for it to value the historic environment as an economic one as well.
Preservationists will also need a firm understanding of real estate development and should understand the market forces and objectively assess the scope of work required in rehabilitating a historic building, street, or district. They will need to understand how to quantify risk and to phase work in a progressive manner. Furthermore, preservationists need to do more than use policy tools; they need to attract investors and develop markets that can sustain redevelopment. Typically, this process begins by matching the right occupant to the right building. This was the case in the development of Midtown Alley in St. Louis, in which the developer targeted a specific business market — creative firms such as advertisement agencies, commercial photographers, and graphic designers — as tenants for the district. These firms were well suited for the building space in Midtown Alley. They were entrepreneurs who wanted historic character in their workspace, moderate overhead, and proximity to downtown. Once an initial market of similar creative-work-based businesses was established, other businesses, services, and amenities soon followed to serve them. Restaurants relocated in Midtown Alley and then condominiums, and now retail is beginning to relocate there. This was a gradual process, but it started with strategic marketing to the right type of tenant. Through gradual small-area development and targeting business enterprises, a critical mass of business activity occurs. This critical mass will strike a balance between high-incomeproducing entrepreneurship and lesser, but equally critical, ones. Through historic preservation, a balance between old and new will happen along with a balance between the high-tech business and the corner coffee shop or boutique. SynergiCity will become more than a new industrial park; it will become a community. Unlike the research parks of the past, innovation districts will emerge where economic productivity, living, and socializing happen simultaneously.
City planners, municipal economic development officials, and mayors should take the opportunity for postindustrial transformation seriously. Although investment in these types of projects is incremental and often complex, the final results are compelling. Examples can be found throughout the United States; in Edenton, North Carolina, before Preservation North Carolina undertook the conversion of the Edenton Cotton Mill into 35 live/work units in 1996, the assessed tax value of the 2,000-square-foot factory was $840,845; today the tax value is more than $5 million (Howard 2007). The city of Baltimore, Maryland, assessed the abandoned 52-acre postindustrial tract in Westport at a mere $99,000; beginning this year, Turner Development will invest over a billion dollars into it (plate 16). And there are indirect cost benefits for municipalities to consider as well (Turner 2010). Redeveloping abandoned factories instead of demolishing them redirects tons of construction debris away from landfills, and underused infrastructure becomes once again productive. The cost savings in these two indirect benefits are immeasurable. Historic preservation can make SynergiCity happen, and as a result of focusing on the economic, environmental, and aesthetic benefits of the postindustrial district, a much more sustainable outcome will happen: a new community.
Notes
1. In Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide, Donovan Rypkema identifies himself and other like-minded preservationists as part of “the revisionist school” in historic preservation, a new breed of preservationists so labeled in the early 1980s by real estate expert Richard Roddewig, who were motivated as much by the economic benefits of historic preservation as by the cultural benefits (Rypkema, 1994, p. 12).
2. Telephone interview with Don Miles, FAIA, principal-in-charge of the Urban Village Vision, by the author. The decision to design environmental and cultural features in Lowertown, such as the riverfront park and a winter garden, were based on surveys by the Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation of Lowertown residents who had moved into rehabilitated warehouses. This market-based research demonstrates that the success of the preservation development brought about a need for larger civic projects for Lowertown such as parks and greenspace.
3. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has proven that retrofitting historic buildings reduces energy use by up to 29%.
References
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Florida, R. 2010. The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive the Post-crash Prosperity. New York: Harper.
Howard, J. M. 2007. Buying Time for Heritage: How to Save an Endangered Historic Property. Raleigh, NC: Preservation North Carolina.
Jacobs, J. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.
Lu, Weiming. 2010, June 23. Interview with Paul H. Kapp and Paul J. Armstrong.
Mayes, Thompson. 2003. “Preservation Law and Public Policy: Balancing Policies and Building an Ethic.” In Stipe 2003, 158-84.
Orange County, NC. Office of Solid Waste Management. 2010. “Construction and Demolition Debris.” Available at the website of Orange Country, NC, www.co.orange.nc.us/recycling/candd.asp. Accessed January 16, 2012.
Ravensbergen, D. 2008. “Be Nice to the Creative Class.” Available at thetyee.ca/Views/2008/08/05/CreativeClass/Accessed January 17, 2012.
Rypkema, D. D. 1998. The Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide. Washington, DC: National Trust for Historic Preservation Press.
Stipe, R. E., ed. 2003. A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Turner, P. 2010, August 10. Interview with Paul H. Kapp.
