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New advantages in old facades
Bruce Matlock photo
This storefront in downtown Statesville is being revamped.
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Published: June 28, 2009
Before she sells her South Center Street Building, Carol Burke wants to turn back the clock on the old Army-Navy building.
Burke hired contractors to strip the metal facade off the South Center Street building to give the State Historic Preservation Office an idea of what was left over from the original.
Like many downtown building owners, Burke knows the value of preserving history, particularly when it comes with Federal and State Historic Preservation tax credits.
"If you have tax credits, it is much more marketable" for sale, Burke said.
Tax credits are one of the factors encouraging downtown building owners to move forward with restoration projects. Most of these restorations include taking down the wooden and metal exterior shells in favor of something more period appropriate.
The state and federal government offer separate 20 percent tax credits for restoration of income-producing historic properties. This means, if a building owner spends $100,000 on a historic restoration, he or she gets $20,000 back from the state and $20,000 from the federal government.
"It is kind of what makes the difference between success and failure," said downtown building owner and local attorney Bill McMillan. "It adds financial incentive to the project."
Burke's building, 212 S. Center St., didn't qualify for tax credits. It is listed as a non-contributing building in the downtown historic district on the National Registrar of Historic Places because of its metal facade, which makes it ineligible.
She hopes to get the National Parks Service to change the building's status.
Metal facades are a product of the 1950s and 1960s, when downtown building owners covered up the buildings in order to compete with the shopping centers and malls near the suburbs, said Mike Stout, regional director for the nonprofit historic conservation group Preservation North Carolina.
"Downtown wanted to look modern," he said. "They were having to compete."
McMillan said that when he moved to the city, the Statesville Jewelry and Loan building on Center Street was a solid mass of beige-looking panels.
"Most of the time it is a matter of uncovering the original facade," McMillan said.
McMillan is also a member of MW Building LLC, which owns the Montgomery Building on North Center Street.
The partners in the MW Building, where Montgomery Ward opened in the late 1920s, were able to obtain the original building plans from a surveyor long before they purchased the building at auction, McMillan said.
"The original facade drawing is framed and in the Montgomery building," he said. "In terms of facade improvement, we just put it where it was originally. It had double doors instead of single doors. That is about the only change."
McMillan said the State Historic Preservation office is familiar with the buildings downtown, and the staff can handle the necessary legwork required on the federal and state level for the tax credits.
In order to be eligible, the restoration work needs to meet the Secretary of Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation through the application process with the NCSHP and the National Park Service.
Also, the owner has to verify with a tax accountant if and how the use of tax credits will work.
Marion and Donna Karrs' Tower View Property Management LLC recently took down the wooden facade at 105 E. Broad St. and re-constructed the original recessed entrance. Donna Karr said they were interested in applying for tax credits, but it takes more work than just restoring the storefronts.
Karr said she spent a lot of hours in the library looking up pictures of the 100 block of East Broad Street in find out what the building looked like.
Between installing doors wide enough to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act and the keeping the iron columns, the design facade was dictated to them, Karr said.
Stiles And Company owner Bill Stiles said an architect has already been hired for the renovations on the Tarheel building on South Center Street.
The building is considered a contributing structure, which means the plans have to go through the NCSHP and the park service.
Stiles and other members of the Spek Investment Co., which owns the building, have pictures of what the building looked like from the V-Day parade in the 1940s.
"There is a lot going on," Stiles said. "What we are doing is big time. Our plan is to take it to the original."
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