I implore you: Please Landmark Trico Plant #1

This letter was sent to Buffalo's Common Council by Derek King, Architectural Historian at Preservation Studios, but due to its editorial nature, is being republished here. If you would like to contact the Common Council, please see this post for more information.

To the members of Buffalo's Common Council,

It is with little hyperbole that I write to you saying that tomorrow you make an important decision, not just about a building, but about the ideological commitment of this city toward sustainable development, to environmental consciousness, and to protecting and celebrating Buffalo's history.

I won't belabor the point, because I'm sure many of you, if not all, have received innumerable e-mails on the topic. While I hope you won't begrudge me for taking advantage of my democratic right to contact you tonight, I will still attempt to keep my points brief.

Historic preservation has moved beyond mere commemoration and restoration, though many have yet to realize it. It is fitting that the Tax Reform Act of 1976 came on the 200th anniversary of our nation's founding: this act, which introduced the first financial incentives to rehabilitate historic structures, assisted in saving many important buildings that would otherwise fallen to ruin.

It also anticipated the problems of today, and of 2026, and of 2076, namely that the buildings that defined our social and cultural history would not, and often could not, be saved without financial assistance. That the anchors to our past, and to what made us great, would be gone.

Buffalo is blessed with an overabundance of these reminders. We have dozens, if not hundreds, of factories that highlight the city's industrial past. We have office buildings that demonstrate one-hundred years of the city's role at the center of not only Western New York's financial world but of the Mid-West. As an attendee of the recent Society of Architectural Historians' conference, held here from April 10-14th, I can tell you that both the buildings designed by Wright, Sullivan, and Richardson, and the neighborhoods full of some of the oldest housing stock in the nation, were the source of amazement and jealousy of historians from around the country.

Much of the city already knows the value of historic preservation, and the successes are almost too many to mention; Allentown, Shea's, the Hotel Lafayette. Every year, more and more of the city is being surveyed for potential historic districts, more important than ever due to the NY State historic tax credit for homeowners. Many of you need not look outside of your own districts for the successful rehabilitation of buildings similar to Trico: The Tri-Main Center, the Bethune Lofts, Artspace, the AC Lofts, the Larkin Exchange Building, and 95 Perry St. 

Yet, despite all of this, City Hall still appears to lag behind. Even though the city touted the importance of preservation in the Comprehensive Plan outlined in 2006, and its new Green Code is dramatically influenced by preservation as well, it always seems as though preservation falls to the wayside in favor of another "shovel-ready" site, or for a silver-bullet project.

Historic preservation is not just about protecting the aesthetically pleasing, or the monumentally important, but about the fabric that binds and connects us, not just to our past, but to the future. Again this is not hyperbole: preservation is an act of sustainable development, which by it's most commonly accepted definition is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Economically, the destruction of the past is frugally irresponsible, not only for the astronomic cost of demolition (particularly for concrete-reinforced steel buildings like Trico), but perpetuates the new-replacing-old cycle we've fallen into over the last half-century. Environmentally speaking, demolition in this city pushes more and more reusable buildings into the landfill, wasting millions of tons of material (and, coincidentally, driving up disposal costs).

Regardless of whether this has swayed you or bored you, the fact remains that historic preservation is not just a matter of nostalgic fervor, but of sound economic and environment policy. Cities around the world and country understand this, and the people and organizations in Buffalo understand this, but the leadership of the city has yet to fully embrace this reality.

I implore you, not only to make a stand for Trico, and the role it has held in our city's past, but to make an ideological statement that rebukes 60 years of anti-preservation policy and action, and demonstrates a commitment to responsible progress not only for the present, but the future of Buffalo.

Please Landmark Trico Plant #1.

4/29 - Trico Press Conference Scheduled for TODAY at City Hall at Noon!

Preservation Buffalo Niagara(PBN) will be hosting a press conference this coming Monday, April 29th at Noon at City Hall in downtown Buffalo.

Tom Yots, Executive Director of PBN, will address the media regarding the pending decision to locally landmark the historic Trico Plant #1 Building. The Trico building was previously denied landmark status last spring when the common council refused to act on the application.

The Trico building, which has been listed on the National Register since 2002, has been determined to be eligible for landmark status by the City of Buffalo Preservation Board twice in the past year - both unanimous votes by the board.

The Common Council will have another opportunity to approve the landmark designation for the Trico building during next Tuesday, April 30th's council meeting. This local designation would allow for greater transparency and ensure valuable public involvement in the reuse discussions surrounding the property. Local landmark designation would also protect the historic integrity of the Trico building and it's eligibility for historic tax credits and/or other State and Federal funding which could ultimately be used to rehabilitate the property.

PBN asks that it's members as well as the general public to actively support the local landmark designation of the Trico Plant #1 Building by contacting their respective City of Buffalo Common Council Members before next Tuesday's Council meeting. 

New York's Historic Tax Credit Program Extended, Enhanced

In October, we posted a piece explaining the need to repair New York's fledgling historic tax credit program.  Specifically, we were concerned about the lack of investor demand - or "appetite" - for New York's historic tax credit (HTC), which has left languishing more than a few upstate New York historic rehab projects. As one possible solution, we called for the addition of "bifurcation" language to the HTC law.  Simply put, bifurcation would have permitted separate investors to claim the federal and New York HTCs, respectively, thereby increasing the pool of potential investors (i.e., demand).

While bifurcation has yet to materialize, New York's 2013 budget process yielded an equally encouraging solution to the HTC supply/demand problem: "refundability".  As the name suggests, for projects placed in service after January 1, 2015, the HTC law now will permit a taxpayer to seek a cash refund for New York HTCs that it can't claim (due to a lack of New York tax liability).  In practical terms, this will free developers to seek investment from the more robust "federal-only" investor pool existing nationally, rather than being limited to the smaller group of investors seeking both federal and New York tax shelters.  More demand means better "pricing", which translates into a higher yield for developers.  As nice byproducts, New York will leverage more investment from its HTC program and upstate communities will enjoy more of what they desperately need: outside investment, sustainable development and jobs.

Refundability is featured in some of the nation's best performing state HTC programs, so this legislative tweak will only strengthen New York's already well-crafted program.  With the extension of the program through 2019, perhaps New York developers finally can settle in and begin to transform even more of upstate New York's significant historic resources.

Written by Jason Yots, a tax credit attorney and the President of Preservation Studios LLC, a Buffalo-based historic preservation company with offices in Rochester, NY and Pittsburgh, PA.  www.preservationstudios.com.  

Just the Facts: Five Points on the Economic Benefits of Preservation

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
-Aldous Huxley

You would think that Buffalo understands what is possible with preservation. You would think that with the successes of Shea's Theatre, Hotel Lafayette, and Larkin Square, people would finally recognize that preservation is not the antithesis of progress. You would think that with so much wonderful architecture, Western New York would have some pride for the buildings that define this city.

You would think that, right?

A recent article on Buffalo Rising highlighted many of the region's attitudes toward preservation, aired through comments on a WBEN Facebook Status that asked, "Do we try to save too much in this town?"

The response was overwhelmingly negative, and David Steele's juxtaposition of the commenters' callousness against photos depicting the city's historic architecture is powerful and infuriating.

Photo Courtesy of The Buffalo News

It is infuriating not because of an "us/them" dynamic, but for the simple lack of informed opinions, replaced with vitriolic condemnation of preservationists as "stuck in the past," or "stopping progress." It is infuriating because it is not just an uninformed public, but elected officials like Lackawanna Mayor Geoff Szymanski, who allow local treasures to be destroyed and repeat the same misinformed ideas about preservation.

Rather than point any fingers however, preservationists should stop relying on emotional and ideological appeal to drive their argument. The historic nature and the aesthetic beauty of these buildings is clearly not enough to convince the people of Buffalo that its architecture is worth saving.

So, let's lay out the facts: preservation IS progress.

Don't believe me? Here are some points you may consider:

1) Historic Preservation Creates Jobs:
How many jobs does a demolition create? Would it create more work than a project that requires plumbers, electricians, carpenters, contractors, window specialists, roofers, and painters? Studies from around the country have proven that preservation related work creates more jobs than nearly any other industry in the country, including some of our nation's staples. In Michigan, $1 million in building rehabilitation creates 12 more jobs than $1 million in car manufacturing. In West Virginia, that $1 million creates 20 more jobs than coal mining, and in Oklahoma, $1 million worth of building rehabilitation is 29 more jobs than pumping oil.

This is because labor accounts for 70% of the cost of historic rehabilitation. Unlike manufacturing, which can move its production to wherever a cheaper workforce is, historic preservation is limited to the labor near the buildings being rehabbed, meaning that a large portion of money spent on these projects stays within the community. Between 2009-2010, 145,000 jobs were created merely through rehabilitation projects that utilized tax credits, not even counting projects that did not pursue any federal assistance. Those same tax-credit deals have generated over $6.2 billion in income as well.

This invariably leads to one of the next most vocal complaints, that historic preservation is a "tax-payer money trap," but, if we actually look at the numbers...

2) Historic rehabilitation tax credit programs actually increase tax revenue.
The same 2011 Rutger's study found that between 2009 and 2010, Federal and State tax credit programs allocated $1.5 billion in tax credits, and received $1.6 billion in tax revenue.  Between 1978 and 2011, the federal government's allocation of $23.4 billion in tax credits has resulted in $90.4 billion dollars in economic activity, creating over 2 million jobs the last three decades.

In 2011 alone, the historic tax credit program created 64,000 jobs, 23,000 of which were in construction and 15,000 of which were in manufacturing. The program lead to $1.2 billion of investment overall to construction, and $1 billion to manufacturing, accounting for $3.7 billion overall to the GDP, and $2.7 billion in income.

But, since this is a federal program, it must be bloated and inefficient, no? Well...

3) Historic preservation is one of the most effective economic development tools there is.
Dollar for dollar, no program is more efficient than historic preservation. Since 1981, 1,600 communities have revitalized their downtowns using "Main Street" principles of preserving historic nature of the neighborhood, investing $16.1 billion. The 89,000 building renovations led to 56,000 new businesses, and 227,000 new jobs, largely because every dollar of public investment lead to $40 of leverage for private funds (Federal and local funding help investors secure more loans from banks, who have more confidence in the financial tenability of the project). As a result, the amount of public investment per job created is only $2,500, compared to the $50,000-$100,000 for other publicly funded programs.

This efficiency goes right back to point #2: if the government subsidizes these programs, how can they be making profit? As a former Philadelphia Mayor Edward Randell noted however, "$1 million rehabilitation expenditure would cost the Treasury $200,000 in lost tax revenue, it would at the same time generate an estimated $779,478 in wages. Taxed at 28%, the investment would produce $218,254 in federal tax revenue." Not only does it create jobs, but it actually increased total tax-revenue.

As many anti-preservationists say, "preservationists should put their money where there mouths are," but I'll take that one step further: municipalities should put more money into historic preservation funding, because...

4) Historic Preservation is Sound Public Policy
This is not just because of the aforementioned job-creation from downtown-revitalization projects, but because the current model of sprawling suburban neighborhoods, moving further away from the central core, and continuing to neglect our already-built housing stock, is unsustainable.

For many, "sustainable" has become a dirty word, associated with hybrid-driving hippies and hipsters, but it is not just environmental sustainability we should be concerned with, but economic sustainability. Did you know that new-construction actually contributes 31.5 million tons of construction waste annually? Often containing hazardous materials, this represents almost 24% of the country's total municipal solid waste, and contributes to the shortage of available landfill. Disposal costs for construction and demolition in the Northeast now ranges between $60 and $140 per ton, and is even being shipped across the country to find available space.

Since 1950, the urbanized area around Buffalo and Niagara Falls has grown three-fold, but the population has remained the same. This is unsustainable growth, and the patterns around the country already show how this kind of development is harmful to public expenditure. Sprawl requires infrastructure, including roads, sewer and water, firehouses, and schools, and the Urban Land Institute estimates that the cost of suburban development is 40 to 400 times greater than compact urban development. The cost of roads around Baltimore will be in excess of $3.6 billion by 2020, and Minneapolis-St. Paul is expected to spend $3.1 billion on water and services by 2020.

There are many arguments for continuing the sprawl outwards, including that these houses will last longer than historic structures, but...

5) When it comes to life expectancy, energy efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, sometimes Old is better than New. 
The life expectancy of a new building is between 30 and 40 years. The hardiness of 100 year old buildings means, properly maintained, they will last at least that long, if not longer. Part of this is the stronger building materials, but it is also connected to better building practices, including load-bearing walls on the exterior rather than the interior of the building that carried a majority of the weight. Historic buildings often have thicker walls, not only making them more expensive to demolish, but actually giving them excellent thermal insulation.

Demolishing a historic building doesn't make much sense, even it is being replaced with an environmentally friendly and energy efficient new build. The cost to demolish one 2-story masonry building in a Washington neighborhood is equal to the entire environmental benefit of 1,344,000 recycled aluminum cans, not to mention the landfill issue noted above that comes with it. Without demolition, a rehab project for a commercial building will cost between 12 percent less to 9 percent more than a comparably sized-new build, but for a new-build with demolition, rehabs would cost between 3 and 16 percent less. Even when demolition costs are factored, they are often underestimated: the fact that a building is old does not mean that it will come down easily. These buildings were designed to last.

This post is merely an introduction to help clarify some of the glaring misinformation regarding historic preservation. These five points summarize a handful of ideas from Dovovan D. Rypkema's book "The Economics of Historic Preservation. The book details 100 points in total, and I have excerpted quite liberally from points #1-14, 22, 39, and 81-84. Dozens of other sources repeat the same things, however, including Rutgers Third Annual "Economic Impact of the Federal Historic Tax Credit" report published in 2012. This post doesn't even address the benefits for tourism, the misinformation regarding historic districts, or community participation, all of which make historic preservation even more important to consider.

The facts are out there, but more pertinent should be the examples around us. The rehabilitation of Hotel Lafayette has triggered a series of investments downtown, including this planned mixed-use adaptation of the Tishman building. The money pumped into the enormous Larkin Complex has lead to a thriving concert and event venue (Larkin Square will be hosting a St. Patrick's Day event this Friday, March 15th) as well as precipitated the development of other buildings nearby, like 500 Seneca. The iconic Grain Elevators were the site of the inspirational and exciting City of Night last September, and have dozens of examples around the world of how they could be utilized.

The facts are there, but perhaps that doesn't matter. Perhaps the same people who cheer when an iconic building gets destroyed simply don't care what the facts say, preferring to be blissfully ignorant than accept that anything "old" could be a part of progress.

That choice is fine for someone commenting on a Facebook status, but not for elected officials who control the future of their cities and towns. Buffalo, Lackawanna, and Western New York deserve better leadership, because while it may be okay for internet commentators to continue living in ignorance, blissful as it may be, it is unfair to damage this region's future when you don't know the facts.

Written by Derek King, Architectural Historian at Preservation Studios. 

Highways and Skyways

Photo of the Skyway courtesy of Wikipedia

For a city like Buffalo, the placement of thruways and arterial highways throughout the downtown core is just one part of a much larger laundry list of problems that will need to be addressed over the next decade. However, in light of the "Buffalo Billion," and all the plans unveiled last week, it is a good time to begin considering how the city will handle its aging infrastructure.

Over the last year, The Atlantic Cities has had a number of articles handling the issue of highways and the urban landscape, including this one published last March. Unlike other views of highways, this article does raise the point that interstate highways have been beneficial for national growth by encouraging travel between cities, but quickly returns to the fact that highways and cities themselves do not mix well.

The article is short, and worth a full-read, but a quick summary is as follows:

• Highways are less efficient, or just as efficient, at moving traffic through high-density areas as non-highways, but seldom more efficient except during non-peak hours.
• Highways have destroyed historic fabric in cities, resulting in the destruction of 335,000 houses during the first decade of the Eisenhower Interstate System, often through minority (primarily African American) neighborhoods, destroying business, livelihoods, and communities. 
• Highways have created physical barriers between different parts of cities, with property values decreasing significantly the closer to the highways, often ensuring impoverished communities remain blighted by disinvestment and crime. 

Interestingly, this is not how it was intended, as the article links to a memo by President Eisenhower that explicitly stated his dissatisfaction about highways running through "congested areas." The article notes that cities around the country have been taking strides to rectify these divisive scars in urban areas, and in November, the website ran another piece that emphasized the efforts of San Francisco and other cities to remedy this problem.

Buffalo can actually learn a great deal from San Francisco's example. When an earthquake damaged a section of Interstate 880 in 1989, rather than repair the structure (which had the same divisive qualities and damage to property values as noted with most highway systems), they chose to replace it with a tree and palm-lined boulevard with options for rail, bike, and cars that highlights, rather than hides its shoreline. As a result, the area has seen a great deal of investment, and is one of San Francisco's most popular areas. 

Buffalo is currently experiencing a revival in its waterfront, headlined by the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation's work to make the harbor the forefront of Buffalo's summer festivities, the announcement of the Webster Block, and the reskinning of the Donovan Building and the restoration of the historic Canalside. Coupled with the corporate and event park at Larkinville, as well as the attention to the Ohio Street Corridor, Buffalo is seeing a great deal of investment.

As it stands, it seems clear that the Skyway is not stopping investment, but who is to say that it wouldn't be better? There seems no better time to address this question as now, while the DOT is considering alternatives to the hulking structure, and implement some of the successes of other cities. In particular, with groups actively looking to develop the Outer Harbor for a variety of uses, including an Olmsted-inspired 21st-century waterfront park, as well as plans that would help bring some of the recent development across the water, plans that would help bring some of the recent development across the water, and even may help resolve stadium issues with the Buffalo Bills. 

Taking note of the success San Francisco has had with their waterfront, wouldn't now be the time to take a look at a multi-modal transportation system that still moves traffic, but incorporates other means of transportation to and from the Inner and Outer Harbor? Wouldn't now, with plans circulating that will lead to new investment along Ohio Street and the 400-acre area along Fuhrman Boulevard, be the time to encourage growth with great infrastructural changes, considering the investment we see right now in the Harbor where development appears to occur in spite of poor infrastructure like the Skyway?

For other parts of the city, infrastructure changes could help reverse a half-century of neglect. The conversion of the Humbolt Parkway, which ran through a then-thriving African American neighborhood (note the similarity to the destruction of prominent minority communities in Nashville, NYC, and elsewhere as mentioned in the AC article) to the Kensington Expressway caused the same plummeting property-values near highways and arterials experienced throughout the country, perpetuating a physical barrier of segregation in the city that begins at Main Street. Not only was it a prominent component of the Olmsted Park System, but it connected neighborhoods and helped foster community in an area that has since lost an incredible amount of density and seen nothing of the investment currently experienced in West and South Buffalo. 

It is no wonder that as calls to tear down the Skyway ring out, similar ideas concerning the future of the Kensington were expressed by activists and politicians alike. Mayor Byron Brown, resident of the Hamlin Park historic district (currently being elevated from local to the National level by Preservation Studios), noted in 2010 that filling in portions of the Kensington Expressway and restoring some sections of the parkway, would help promote investment in the area, a concept that seems to have traction considering the success in other parts of the city. David Torque's blog Fix Buffalo, featured a multi-part series following discussions concerning the parkway as well. 

The fact remains, however, that Buffalo's past mistakes are coming back to haunt them. Boulevards like Humboldt Parkway are being proposed as highway replacements throughout the country, and if Buffalo were to follow, the Kensington Expressway would be a bitterly ironic mulligan of development. The Skyway, a product of the same urban renewal program that destroyed the sprawling Italian Colony west of City Hall, was listed #4 on the Congress of New Urbanism's "Freeways Without Futures," noting that while investment on the Inner Harbor continues, it is hampered by the non-traditional street-grid forced onto it by the highway, and that Outer Harbor development would be greatly facilitated by non car-dependent means of access. 

Speaking with a resident on the East Side recently, he noted that while he was encouraged by Buffalo's recently growth, "as long as we stay where we are, and don't get worse, I'll be happy."

Buffalo doesn't have to maintain the status quo, and if it follows some proven examples in other cities, it could continue the positive trends of the last decade, and reassert itself at the National-level as something other than another rust-belt city with a golden past.

In fact, it could become recognized for what it really is: a city with a bright future. 

Written by Derek King, an Architectural Historian at Preservation Studios. 

Tax Credit Programs Point to Ideal Pairing of Film and Preservation

In case you may have missed it, Governor Cuomo issued a press release Tuesday outlining his 2013-2014 Executive Budget. Though much of the release concerned reform, mandates, and spending, two highlighted programs caught the eye of a few of us here at Preservation Studios.

The first was the New York Film Production Tax Credit, which has been extended through 2019 with up to $420 million available per year for film production in the state. The second was the Historic Commercial Properties Rehabilitation Credit, which extends the existing tax credit, up to $5 million per project, through 2019, making the credit refundable after 2015.

Pierce-Arrow Admin Building, future home of
the Pierce-Arrow Film Arts Center
Photo Courtesy of WNY Heritage Press

At first glance, the two would not seem related, but in a city like Buffalo, where there is a surplus of commercial space and a thriving art culture, the extension and enhancement of these programs could be very successful. 

Part of this is tied to the requirements of the Film Production Credit. In order to qualify, a film crew has to utilize a facility regularly used for production and that features a 7,000 square foot soundstage, though only one day of filming needs to occur there, and the filming can be completed in any part of the facility, not just the large soundstage. If a qualified film production facility is used, then the film company is eligible for up to a 30% tax credit on their project. 

Though Buffalo only has four facilities that meet the criteria at present, the city is blessed with an abundance of buildings that could be easily converted into production spaces making them eligible for the tax credit. Buildings like 500 Seneca, which features 180,000 square feet of available space could easily convert 7,000 into a soundstage, and just as likely are the plethora of warehouses along Niagara Street and in the East Side. 

This is where the New York Historic Commercial Properties Rehabilitation Credit comes in. Converting large warehouses and factories is obviously a costly endeavor (the 500 Seneca rehab is estimated to cost $35 million), and tax credit programs like this allow developers not only to offset the cost of the rehab, but actually enables them to leverage more assets against the bank to help secure a better loan package. 

The result? A developer looking to convert a warehouse in Buffalo could apply for the rehab credit, as well as the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit program (if it is eligible), then begin catering to film studios looking to feature Buffalo's historic architecture and benefit from the State's film production credit. 

Some groups are already poised to take advantage of the program. The Pierce-Arrow Film Arts Center, establishing themselves in the former car-manufacturing company's Admin building at 1685 Elmwood, features one of the four qualified facilities in the Buffalo-Niagara area. The group is hoping to bring together a collaboration of several film groups in Buffalo, creating a common space where students and professionals could work together on projects. The hope is not only to draw production companies to the city by providing a facility already staffed with qualified workers, but to ensure that film professionals stay in the city as well.

With the extension of the Film Production Credit, hopefully the Film Arts Center can draw several production companies to Buffalo. The Film Production tax credit program has been incredibly successful for New York State, resulting not only in $6.9 billion of spending in the State, but accounting for $748 million in taxes (compared to the $335 million that was credited) as well. If Buffalo can continue to preserve its beautiful historic fabric, as well as convert some of its forgotten buildings to new uses, perhaps it can tap into this already burgeoning market in New York State.

Written by Derek King, an Architectural Historian at Preservation Studios. 

New York Dodges Silver Bullet with Governor's Veto of Historic Tax Credit Legislation

This week, Governor Cuomo vetoed legislation that would have increased the cap under New York’s historic tax credit program from $5 million to $12 million.  Widely reported as a setback for the program, it seems to us that New Yorkers may have instead dodged a silver bullet.

Niagara Hotel, Niagara Falls
Photo: Mike Puma

As we discussed in a Buffalo Rising post not long ago, the primary drag on New York’s program (particularly Upstate) is the inability to “bifurcate” the New York historic tax credit, not the restraint of the $5 million cap.

Governor Cuomo has done the New York preservation community a favor with his veto.  We must now respond with a compromise that makes sense for everyone: bifurcation.

Written by Jason Yots, President of Preservation Studios