Historic Preservation in Raleigh. What to keep?

The Pub
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I just don’t know how much people really care about having really old buildings

Check out reddit. I’d go out on a limb to say it’s the majority of people who feel Raleigh is losing too many historic buildings. Up until recently, I used to say “eh, I don’t think that’s true; we’ve gotten a lot better about preserving our history since the 1960-80s,” but unfortunately I’m starting to see that trend reverse.

just because they are old and pretty

Several people have given much more thoughtful explanations of the value of old buildings than “they are old and pretty.” This is a ludicrously surface-level take.

I highly doubt people are moving from Raleigh (or any other city) simply because we have replaced old buildings with new development.

Not yet, but if we trend towards Uptown Charlotte, I’m out.

There are also issues that have to be considered when preserving these such as safety, functionality, etc.

Of course. But was Goodnights unsafe? What about Seaboard Station? The Depot? Berkeley Café? And are/were these not highly functioning homes for existing businesses? Or is this merely a distraction from the real reason they are being destroyed – developers’ profits? Old buildings can be made more functional if we simply value them enough to give them new life.

Again, I’m all for preserving historic landmarks that have historical value that cannot be replaced

None of these buildings can be replaced. We no longer build with load-bearing masonry, or old-growth heavy timber, or any number of the historic building techniques existing in some of these buildings. And as I’ve stated elsewhere in this thread, there is also the issue of scale. We will never again build structures in downtown Raleigh that are this approachable as a pedestrian. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

(Man, I’m in a :grumpy_cat: mood today because one of my favorite restaurants/buildings in Durham is getting torn down for redevelopment… it’s not just Raleigh)

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Yeah, that sucks about St Jimmy’s - hopefully they’ll bounce into a good pivot.
Maybe even cross into Wake county…C’mon Chef Kelly read this and DO it… :grinning:

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Great points and I totally agree.

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Sure, but not the intent of my post which was to point out that there is a lot of space between “all of the above” and “bland stereotype” and to push back on the idea we are anywhere close to the latter.

Lots of talk in this thread, for example, about tearing down old buildings, but not much at all about the rehabilitation of them. Heights House hotel (since this is a hotel thread) is a good example, but numerous others including all the renovations on Blount St, Transfer Food Hall, Raleigh Iron Works etc

Of course, this is a subjective conversation, but I just reject the premise that retention of your old building inventory is the only path to be a cool and interesting city or that we are even doing a bad job of that to begin with. JMO

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It’s tough because if the city starts to become overly restrictive again about development, then we’ll likely see development slow down drastically regardless of market conditions. But there’s got to be a balance, and with some of these recent proposals it’s starting to feel unbalanced in a way completely opposite to how things had been.

Down here in Charlotte, we’re losing a lot of our Berkeley-type buildings that admittedly aren’t architecturally/historically significant, but provide so much contrast to the new stuff that’s going up everywhere. Granted, I don’t think most of these buildings house functional businesses anymore, but there’s so much potential. Meanwhile, about a quarter of our downtown is littered with entire blocks devoted solely to parking, all owned by one so-called developer whose only accomplishment is constructing a parking deck that was deemed structurally unsafe before it ever opened, and has been abandoned since. One City Center in Durham is, in my opinion, the model that should be followed in these situations, as it blends new construction with existing buildings better than anywhere else in the state that I can think of.

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I have to wonder if we asked people why they wanted to save all of the old buildings what their answers would be?
I think that if you really dug deeply, you’d collect answers about sense of place, and about them being people oriented, and on a relatable scale. I think that you’d hear about texture, warmth of materials, feeling connected to THIS place, etc.
It’s not that these sorts of things can’t be addressed in new construction. It’s just that oftentimes they aren’t, and the public just doesn’t have confidence that new buildings will do even an equal job to those lost along the way.
If we design our buildings such that the ground level or two paid attention to our humanity, it’s possible that the resistance would wane. If we cared about how these new buildings met and engaged the sidewalk experience, or If we built with relatable materials and details, or if they were just plain people oriented, perhaps people would be excited about change?

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I think @john has talked about this exemption on multiple projects, historic buildings can be demolished if it’s deemed to expensive to repair after a “catastrophe” (I can’t remember the exact language). But after the explosion in the building behind St James a developer now has access to build here.

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This building is not protected and the demolition isn’t related to the explosion. The building has already been repaired and has an operational businesses in it.

An investment firm (Asana) purchased at least a half dozen buildings in the area and will probably be demolishing them for high-rises. It’s not just this block but the adjacent one too.

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Where did I or anyone say that, though? There are plenty of ways a city is cool and interesting, and buildings that have been a part of it for longer than I’ve been alive is very cool to see. And yes, all those old building rehabs are FANTASTIC! Those are exactly what I’d like to see happen with a MAJORITY of Raleigh’s remaining old buildings. And by “old buildings” - of course I’m not talking about any single freestanding building over a couple years old, we’re talking about structures that have stood and been part of the fabric of our city for a century - and as @elevatoroperator states; once they’re gone, they are GONE.

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I guess my question would be…who are we lobbying to to “#savetheberkeley”? Unless we register all of our older building as Historic Places, there’s nothing we or the city of Raleigh can do to prevent the owner of the building from selling to a developer. Maybe the owners don’t want to continue to pay the taxes or to continually pay for repairs or restorations for these old buildings.

I’m not advocating to go around and find all our old buildings and tear them down. If we can safely and cost effectively revitalize some of these and turn them into something we can be excited about, I’m all for it. I’ve long said I’d love to see the Sir Walter turned into a boutique hotel someday. And the City Market with the cobblestone streets are unique and historic to Raleigh and I would be very sad to ever see that go. But we have alot more older buildings in our downtown than people realize, I believe, and if we have to replace some of those with something new and exciting, I’m all for that too.

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Bland stereotype was an exact quote from the discussion in response to replacing a single old building.

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My favorite is when people say as rationale - “this building is past its useful purpose.”

I feel like that is actually never true.

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It is often true but these buildings can be retrofitted and renovated but of course that will require a lot of money.

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Most European cities had a wooden structure phase and series of wooden structure phase that have since been lost to time through major city fires and war. What remains is rock hard stone structures and a few brick buildings. Brick slowly crumbles however. The only stone building in Raleigh is the Capitol building and what else?

We should be adding timeless structure to Raleigh all the time and not just watch as older buildings are replaced. If we build a grand opera house and performance art center that is visually unique and artistically stunning—who’s to say that it won’t be be saved in a 100 years as a historic structure enjoyed for hundreds of years? Instead we seem okay with pre-fabricated green metal barn looking DECPA.

Image of DECPA below:

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What to keep? Honestly, I don’t think people in the year 2222 will see much value of some of the structures we are keen to keep.

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I think DECPA’s a pretty slick compromise to keep the gorgeous Raleigh Memorial Auditorium building but make it big enough for two stages and modern productions. I wouldn’t cry if the 1990/2001 additions were replaced one day, but I like them for now.

I do like the idea of more stone buildings - I’d be all in for a Beaux-Arts city hall instead of a Scandinavian-style tower. David Schwarz does some great grand civic architecture: David M. Schwarz - Wikipedia

Or on a modern level, something like Oslo Opera House would be a dream, although we don’t have their oil money to make funding it simple: Oslo Opera House - Wikipedia

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Allow me to translate: “This building is not generating AS MUCH MONEY AS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE and also HAS NO PARKING FOR MY BMW!!!”

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120

Not sure where best to put this (historic preservation? The Willard Pl 40-story rezoning request? Oakwood?) but an interesting conundrum here: the Society for the Preservation of Historic Oakwood wants to buy a city-owned parking lot within Oakwood (for $100,000 under the minimum bid requirement, which is already $100,000+ below the tax value of the lot) to move two historic homes currently under threat: The big yellow house near the corner of the Bloomsbury lot (Boylan x Hargett) and the 615 Willard Pl house that’s behind the new Willard Hotel.

While I’m all for the moving and preservation of historic homes, the purpose of the city selling that lot in Oakwood was to raise funds for their affordable housing program (this is one of many city-owned lots they have put on the market for this purpose) - which the Oak Preservation society acknowledges, but also stated:
“It’s all well and good for the City Council to say that money raised from the sale of this lot is going to go toward affordable housing,” Penven-Crew said. “But even if they got the appraised value, that is a drop in the bucket toward affordable housing. It’s not going to make or break their affordable housing program.” …well, ok, but if every lot was considered in that way, then there wouldn’t even be a “drop in the bucket” towards affordable housing program(s)… so that’s not really a great argument lmao.

I also find this statement laughable:
And there is hope, she said, that the homes could serve as affordable housing but that’s a future consideration and would require another partner. Right now, the goal is to save the homes. “The only criteria that he Society for the Preservation of Historic Oakwood has, at this point, is to try to rescue a property that is going to be torn down,” she said. “And so we need to make sure that we get that done. And then we need to explore whether we can make it into some kind of affordable housing space.”

Oh yeah, I’m sure they’ll spend the (lowball) $300,000 to buy the lot, then who knows how many hundreds of thousands it’ll cost to safely move the houses and then secure them onto their new lots, probably needing some hefty renovation to get them up to Oakwood standards… then turn around and rent them out for under market-rates out of the kindness of their hearts :rofl:

I’m all for moving these houses, and the surface lot they intend to move them to is certainly appropriate, but I’d need to see a lot more offered from them in writing before I’d support this in full.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article269727526.html

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I’m on the fence here but I think I lean toward being ok with moving these homes to these surface parking lots, accepting SPHO’s bid. Not exactly for historic preservation but I’m ok with it because/if:

  • It puts a building on the lot sooner rather than later and this building can house humans sooner rather than later
  • Putting density on smaller lots seems to not be Raleigh’s thing right now.
  • These older homes are quite large and it was very common when they were built to subdivide them. They are perfect candidates for conversion to duplexes or triplexes.
  • If SPHO’s bid is competitive (this is subjective I get it) and not drastically lower than the top few bids, I’m not worried about getting less from it (yup, drop in the bucket)
  • BONUS: Environmental benefit (demolished house stays out of the landfill)

I don’t feel these two priorities, historic preservation and affordable housing, have to be pitted against each other in these house saving scenarios here. The city seems to have gone soft on affordable housing by selling their properties. If they wanted to go in bigger, don’t sell the properties, build on your properties!

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THIS ISH RIGHT HERE!!! 100% agree the city should be partnering with developers to build affordable housing vs just selling off land and hoping pwetty pwetty pweeeeze that developers will just do it themselves hahahaha

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