r/HistoricPreservation

Has anyone dealt with a historic commission denying a renovation/addition primarily over massing?

We’re renovating a historic home and proposed a rear addition. The plans comply with the applicable guidelines/code, but the commission denied the proposal based largely on concerns about the overall massing/scale of the addition.

I’m curious if anyone here has been through something similar. If so- Were you able to get approval by revising the massing without completely redesigning the project?

Revisions to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) being proposed at the instigation of the Trump administration would drastically diminish the effectiveness of the act in protecting historic and cultural resources in the US. The changes under review by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), which is now packed more than half with Trump appointees, oversees the NHPA. These changes would hobble implementation of the NHPA’s Section 106, which mandates that all federal undertakings, including those done directly, funded, permitted or licensed by federal agencies “take into account” the effects of their actions on historic properties and places. It enables public participation and comment in the process, empowers state and local governments and tribal communities to have a voice in the process, often improving the project and enhancing the outcome. 

This latest move follows earlier budget cuts to the National Park Service and state and tribal agencies responsible for implementing Section 106. 

Since its inception 60 years ago, Section 106 has been the principal mechanism for the identification, evaluation and preservation of historic properties, threatened by development, including architectural, archaeological and historically significant sites to determine whether they are eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NHPA). If they are found eligible, Section 106 mandates actions to protect them, either by preservation in place or mitigation of adverse effects via investigation and recording. More than a hundred thousand properties, ranging from well-known buildings such as the Empire State Building in New York City to small Native American archaeological sites, have been protected from damage or destruction by this process, preserving a cultural and historical heritage for the people of the United States and the world. 

I’ve recently been considering a master’s in architectural conservation but I don’t know if that is for sure the route I want to take or if there are other options out there I should consider. I’m located in the US, I am in my late 20s, and I have an associates degree in Architectural Technology and bachelor’s degree in Accounting (explained below).

I started learning drafting in high school and then went on to obtain an associates degree in Architectural Technology. I started working in the field with a residential firm for about 3 years, when I then decided to go back for a bachelors degree. I ultimately chose a bachelors in accounting for a couple of reasons. I did not like the style of the closest university’s architecture program (in short it felt like the program did not teach a lot on design for anything other than modern/futuristic style buildings. Some peers of mine also said that after transferring there, it felt like they already learned half of the coursework from the AAS program.) Additionally, I chose accounting as one of my future plans is to manage/maintain my own design business. In my experience, at least in my region of the country, it seems many construction firms mismanage their money or their clients money and it makes the overall experience really negative for all parties involved.

As stated above, I have had 3 years experience working as a project designer for a residential firm, very light commercial experience, and within the last year have started my own drafting services for residential construction. In addition, for 3 years and currently, I teach part time for the AAS Arch Tech Program I attended. I have taught introductory courses for estimating, management, and a course designed to help students learn the basics of building analysis, design, and theory.

My passion is for residential design, and I also am interested in historical restoration and preservation. I have never had a big interest in working for large firms or in the commercial field. From what I have heard, it seems most people who work in historical preservation mainly work in CRM firms and policy and compliance work, which I do think is needed but I don’t think I would be happy doing that solely. I enjoy design work and enjoy working out how to repurpose an old home to still maintain its original style but also make modern day updates and tie into its original character. I like the thought of continuing teaching, moving up to doing research, but I know I would need to continue in education for masters/phd if I did.

I thought an architectural conservation/historical preservation master’s degree would be the most beneficial to me, but should I instead consider a masters of architecture instead or other program? I’m not sure what would be the most beneficial to me for my interest’s and future.
Thanks in advance for any advice!

If you've driven past Canton Street + Mayfield Road in Alpharetta, you've probably wondered what's happening to this house.
It's the historic John C. Weatherford House, built sometime between 1910 and 1920.
And there is a reason it's still standing while development happens around it.
When Alpharetta approved the residential development on the property, one of the conditions required the house to be saved and restored.
The City later formally designated it historic.
But an engineering assessment identified serious foundation, structural and soil issues.
Now the developer is asking Alpharetta to change the original condition.
Instead of restoring the existing structure where it sits, the proposal calls for taking it apart by hand, salvaging viable original exterior materials, building a new foundation and reconstructing the house while maintaining its historic appearance from Canton Street.
That creates a much more interesting question than simply, “Are they tearing down an old house?”
If you dismantle a historic house and rebuild it, did you preserve the house or preserve what the house looked like?

I’m hoping to get some direction. I live in a small, working-class town in Northern Michigan on a Great Lake that has recently seen a boom in tourism and retirees.

A city rep showed up at my house to tell me a developer wants my property for a proposed development that totals 71,400 total square feet: a 49,000 sq ft, 3-story hotel with a rooftop bar overlooking the lake, plus 22,400 sq ft of townhouses (12 units, 2 levels each).

he initially made it seem like a courtesy to let me know a big project was starting all sides around me and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it, hotel guests would have direct views into my yard, my privacy fence would not protect me and there would be activity on all sides of me, making the living situation very uncomfortable

I pressed a bit saying...ok? why would they ask you to speak to me then? seems like its happening no matter what and he mentioned they'd be willing to pay to move my home ( its a 98 year old foundation, framed with literal recycled ship lumber from the nearby port in 1926) its not moving, or buy it from me, insinuating this is out of kindness so I wouldn't be annoyed for the rest of my days

I got ahold of the draft of plans and it's clear all of the plans involve the acquisition of my home and demolition thereafter, the story I was told I believe was brief attempt to startle me enough, hope I didn't ask a single question and went and put my house on the market that night. I work in manufacturing/agriculture operations and understood some basic nuances taking place pretty quickly

The Nuances: My property is dead center in the middle of this proposed development.

• The Land: I have a grass city owned lot on one side, a city lot/garage across the alley on the other side, and a large city lot with a recently renovated building on the far side, slated for an event center behind me. All these city lots (which are owned by the DDA) are in the plans for this development. My property takes up the footprint of about 4 of the proposed townhouses and prevents them from eliminating the alleyway, i think?.
• My Stance: I had no prior intention of selling. I would have to be really impressed to even consider relocating, and the relocation would practically have to be facilitated for me with a significantly better situation, considering my current setup is great. I own a fully remodeled 2,600 sq ft, 98-year-old craftsman with a full perimeter privacy fence, a lofted barn, central AC, whole-home air/water filtration, and a large rear deck. I have Great Lake views from a second-floor bedroom and front porch.
• The Financial Reality: I bought this house in 2021 for $172k at a 3.5% interest rate. I estimate the current market value at $250k-$300k. But current rates are around 6.7%. Even if they offered me 120% of the market value, it’s not a 1:1 move. I would lose my lake views, incur moving costs, and trade a 3.5% mortgage for a 6.7% mortgage in an increasingly expensive market. Some comps of similar sized homes near the lake for example were going for 325k a year ago and are between 500-600k now (newer homes with some land on the edges of town)

crunching some numbers I came up with this in terms estimated costs of this project

Commercial construction costs in the Midwest for mid-scale to boutique properties currently range from 250-400 sqft, heavily depending on finishes (like a rooftop bar).

• The Hotel: At 49,000 sq ft, a 3-story hotel with a rooftop restaurant/bar requires heavy structural steel, elevator shafts, and commercial plumbing/HVAC. Estimated cost: $14.5 million to $19.6 million.
• The Townhouses: At 22,400 sq ft, commercial-grade townhouse construction (often requiring firewalls and premium waterfront finishes) will run roughly $200 to $300 per sq ft. Estimated cost: $4.4 million to $6.7 million.
• Site Work & Soft Costs: Permitting, architectural fees, tearing up the alleyway, running new municipal utilities, and landscaping will easily add another 15% to 20% to the budget. Estimated cost: $3 million to $5 million.

Total Estimated Project Cost: $22 Million to $31 Million

My Questions:

1. What kind of power do I actually have here? Can the city force me out to hand my land to a private developer?
2. with my property sitting on city street and two city alleyways, those two alleyways separate the adjacent lots from my land, if I don't sell, what can they do to eliminate these alleys, if anything?
3. How do you even determine "comps" for a situation like this where the city is likely transferring their DDA lots for little to nothing, and I am the only private parcel they need?
4. What kind of attorney should I contact?

Update:

A huge thank you to everyone who commented! I uncovered a piece of the puzzle: the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) is the entity pushing the city to talk to me.
To get multi-million dollar state "gap funding" for a project this size, a developer has to prove total "site control"—meaning their plans and property acquisition must be completely locked in before they can even apply. They cannot secure state grant money with a private homeowner sitting dead center in their blueprints.
So far some reason they want me aware of the situation before the developer even reaches out, assuming they want to streamline the funding process and making me get my shit together so there isn’t delays

Joseph S. Pete

A century ago, people flocked from Eastern Europe, the South and all over the world to the steel mill town of Gary, which had risen overnight from the sandy shores of Lake Michigan to make the metal that built up America in the 20th century.

Rev. William G. Seaman aspired to bring faith to a rough-and-tumble town filled with rough-hewn shanties, saloons and liquor-swilling steelworkers.
He built the towering nine-story City Methodist Church that loomed over downtown Gary and was compared to Europe's great churches. The castle-like Gothic cathedral grew into the largest Methodist church in the Midwest, with thousands packing the pews, but ended up abandoned like so much of the Steel City a half-century ago.

The long-abandoned City Methodist Church at 577 W. Washington St., which some have called God's forsaken house, has drawn urban explorers from across the country. The striking limestone structure has been a backdrop for Hollywood films, including in the Transformers and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises. It was featured on the show "Life After People" as an example of urban decay.

The City of Gary had made it a highlight of architectural tours in the past and secured a historical marker in 2019. The city had explored options for salvaging at least some of the dramatic houses of worship forged by immigrant craftsmen, including turning it into a European-style ruins garden.

A University of Notre Dame study proposed preserving the iconic bell tower that rises over the sanctuary, making it the centerpiece of a proposed City Renaissance Park.

The redevelopment commission spent $112,000 earlier this year to hire the Chicago-based architecture and engineering firm Bailey Edward to determine if the tower could be stabilized while the rest of the crumbling church was removed. It was the determined entire church will now come down.

"Unfortunately, it will all be demolished," City of Gary spokesman Steve Segura said. "The property is unsafe and not recoverable, especially with a school across the street."

Bids were due this week for contractors to raze City Methodist Church and the dilapidated St. Mary's Mercy Hospital. The entire church will come down, Regional Development Authority spokesman Dave Wellman said.

Gary was left with thousands of abandoned buildings after U.S. Steel's Gary Works laid off thousands of workers in the 1970s, and the city suffered white flight after it became one of the country's first large cities to elect a Black mayor. The city has recently stepped up its efforts to demolish blighted buildings, for instance, removing many long-vacant storefronts along Broadway and architecturally notable buildings like the Memorial Auditorium. The city is poised to tear down the H. Gordon and Sons Department Store, and its blight removal efforts were just highlighted this week in a Wall Street Journal article.
"It’s sad to see it finally coming down," said photographer Joey Lax-Salinas, who had often photographed City Methodist Church. "It almost doesn’t seem real, considering it has stood vacant for so long. It would be great if someone might come in at the eleventh hour to save the bell tower portion."

Seaman's folly
Closed in 1975, the long-vacant church has now been a sanctuary of silence for longer than choirs sang praise there. It has long been seen as a symbol of urban decay and the economic decline of a one-industry town in the buckle of the Rust Belt.
"It's a beautiful building that's long been admired by photographers," Indiana University Northwest Professor of History Emeritus James Lane said. "Its bloom and decline mirrored that of the city, and when white people started abandoning the city."

The benefactor of much of Gary's early development as the largest city founded during the 20th century, U.S. Steel helped fund the ornate church, which had a school, gym, theater, music studio and cafeteria. Elbert Gary, one of U.S. Steel's founders and the namesake of the City of Gary, donated the organ.
The Chicago architecture firm Lowe and Bollenbacher designed the church, which was built for $800,000 or around $14.9 million today. The massive building was too expensive for its shrinking congregation to maintain or for another church to take over and run it. Some questioned the size and grandeur, calling it "Seaman's folly."

But it flourished, especially after the Calumet Region's steel mills ran around the clock during World War II. Many of the parishioners were supervisors at Gary Works and other more affluent people who then lived on the north side of Gary in neighborhoods like Horace Mann, which produced a Nobel Prize-winning economist, former South Shore Arts Executive Director John Cain and other high achievers, Lane said.

The church grew a congregation of more than 3,000 during the 1950s and became a meeting space for many community events.

"The real tragedy of City Methodist was that William Seaman had a grand vision," Lane said. "He wanted the church to be an ecumenical place. He wanted Seaman Hall to be the center of religious and cultural life. It hosted IUN. It was a big fundraiser for Methodist Hospital. It has exchanges with African-American ministers. It had African-American choirs. Some thought he was too friendly to minorities. He was seen as too spendthrift. It had several thousand members, but they were all white, and by the 1970s, there were only a few old white people left. The church went from being active and jam-packed to largely empty."

City Methodist Church welcomed Black people but was segregated. It did not adapt as the community changed around it.

"By the time it closed in the 1970s, there were a lot of Black churches like St. Timothy's that were doing very well," Lane said. "But they integrated in the 1950s and 1960s. By then, it was too late. The neighborhood went from mostly white to Black in the blink of an eye. I interviewed a florist who lost most of his customers overnight. The parishioners who lived in that neighborhood moved out. Black residents went to other churches with Black ministers and Black congregations."

Hollywood came calling
The Great Gary Arson swept through the downtown in 1997, causing extensive damage to the City Methodist Church. The fire damage gashed open the building, exposing it to the elements and the freeze-thaw cycles that accelerated its decline. The sanctuary roof started to collapse years ago, and holes have started to open up to the basement.
Lax-Salinas, also an author of books like "Fading Ads of Indiana," said he had hopes the city could salvage at least some of the building, saying the arch columns looked as solid as the Roman Colosseum.

Before Gary reached a verdict of demolition for City Methodist Church in Gary, the landmark drew photographers, artists, filmmakers, historians and preservationists.

"I think it’s a missed opportunity for Gary not to save at least the bell tower portion of it. It’s centrally located downtown and could become a park for small gatherings or festivals, like a farmers market," he said. "Unfortunately, these thoughts and plans should have been laid out decades ago with some sort of plan in place."

The architectural marvel has drawn people for music videos, wedding photos and urban exploration videos over the years. Its image has been splashed all over YouTube, Instagram and art fairs across the Midwest, including in Chicago and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
"I think the church became so popular among photographers because you just can’t find buildings like these that have been abandoned for such an incredibly long time. Shamefully long. No building should stand vacant and decrepit in a downtown city district for more than four decades. The ease of access to the building was no doubt its lure," Lax-Salinas said. "Unique in its architecture, the building was hardly secured over the years, making it easy for photographers and vandals to make it a temporary place for themselves."

City Methodist Church was so visually dramatic it was used as a setting for many films and television shows, including "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," 2010's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and Netflix's "Sense8," which was made by the directors of "The Matrix."
"Hollywood came calling because they likely also saw the uniqueness of having a structure in this shape without having to build it like a set," Lax-Salinas said. "They had permission to do what they wanted, knock down walls when needed, etc. The Transformers movie took a big hole in the main level wall that separated the sanctuary from the school portion. No doubt, the church is currently the crown jewel of all urban/ruin photography in Northwest Indiana, and its dethroning will be felt within the photography community for years to come."

Its influence will continue
The Decay Devils, one of the Region's leading preservation groups, came together after they encountered each other exploring and photographing the historic church.
"City Methodist is also where Decay Devils began. Before the nonprofit, the trips, tours, books, grants, and preservation projects, it was simply a group of friends meeting there to create. That building became the foundation for everything we've accomplished since," President Tyrell Anderson said.

The Decay Devils have worked for years to save the nearby Union Station and other historic structures in Gary. Anderson also now works to save notable buildings around the state while serving on the board of the Indiana Landmarks statewide preservation group.

"For me, City Methodist Church was a place of inspiration. I've created some of my favorite photographs and artwork there, and it was always a peaceful place to meet other creatives who shared a passion for history, architecture, and storytelling. Some saw decay, but I saw beauty," he said. "For the urban exploration community, City Methodist was almost a rite of passage. People traveled from around the world just to experience it. It wasn't simply about abandoned architecture. The church inspired photographers, artists, filmmakers, historians, and preservationists alike, often serving as their introduction to Gary's larger story."

In 2014, Gary fenced off the church to try to deter people from entering after the sanctuary roof collapsed more than a decade ago while an Indianapolis television news crew was filming there.
Pedestrians often pass by. It's next to the Genesis Towers, the 21st Century Charter School and newer homes along Washington Street.

Though City Methodist has stood empty for more than half a century, there are signs of life around it everywhere. Lane said he was once interviewed there by a film crew from England that stopped shooting whenever school children would pass by outside because it broke the illusion of it being a completely abandoned place.

After exploring options to turn the grounds into a ruins garden and preserving the bell tower, City Methodist Church in Gary is slated for demolition.
"Even the ruins are beautiful, the way the sunlight hits those stained-glass windows," he said. "It would have been wonderful to preserve as a ruins garden and at least keep part of it. The ideal situation would be to keep the beauty of it and the facade of the church while making it safe for photographers."
Anderson said City Methodist Church has unfortunately deteriorated to the point where it poses a safety issue to neighborhood children and said any hope of saving the church building for future generations seemed unrealistic.
"As much as I'd love to see it preserved, the reality is that restoring a building of that size requires an enormous financial commitment," Anderson said. "Unfortunately, the funding and development partners needed to make that happen just aren't there. While it's difficult to watch it disappear, I'm grateful for everything it gave me and the countless people it inspired. Its influence will continue through the work we're doing to preserve the stories and places that remain."