This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/preserving-history-or-just-tax-breaks/

Commission wants derided 35-year-old 100 East building on National Register

A small group of enthusiasts would like to put Milwaukee at the forefront of historical preservation of postmodern architecture. Or at least help a downtown developer get a tax break.

Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission earlier this week signed on to the nomination of the 35-year-old 100 East building, sometimes known as the Faison Building, for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

100 East Propco LLC, an investor development group including Klein Development Inc. and John Vasallo, is requesting historic preservation status to secure up to 40% federal ​​​​and state tax credits on the expense of converting the office building it bought for $28.75 million into apartments.

The process is notoriously tough. The project needs approval of the State Historic ​​​​Preservation Officer and the National Park Service.

Maybe the toughest part of the process is trying to figure out just exactly what makes a building historic.

The Park Service criteria includes, among other things, “the quality of significance in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.”

In the case of 100 East, it’s the architecture, Andrew Stern, a preservation planner for the city, told a local newspaper. The building is the most important Milwaukee example of postmodern design, Stern said. “I think it’s hard to argue against that.”

Maybe impossible to argue against, but the 100 East building is 35 years old. And while the National Register has not updated its architectural styles list for more than 25 years, there is only one postmodern building in the country, the Portland Building, on its rolls, Tim Askin, senior preservation planner, told the Badger Institute.

Well then, what exactly is this postmodern architecture and what is its architectural and historic value? Here it gets a little sticky. Postmodern architecture made its appearance in the mid- to late-1970s in reaction to the boxy brutalism of Bauhaus and other austere styles of the first half of the 20th Century.

Young architects like those at Clark, Tribble, Harris & Li, the Charlotte, North Carolina firm that designed 100 East, took their cues from more ornate buildings of the past, like the Pabst Building, the tallest building in Milwaukee when it was completed in 1892.

The Pabst Mansion and the Pabst Brewery are in the National Register, but the impressive, neo-gothic Pabst Building was razed in the early 1980s to make room for 100 East. The outcry over the demolition helped create the city’s Preservation Commission.

The public response to this postmodern replacement, 100 East, was mixed. In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story from May 14, 1991 on the worst architecture in the city as chosen by four local architects, Prof. Don Hanlon at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, said, “The decoration is all out of proportion and because it’s a parody of City Hall, it makes City Hall look bad. I think it’s done a lot of damage to downtown. It’s a bad joke.”

There is a pointed lack of consensus about postmodernism. Architectural Record in February scolded local preservationists for their “bureaucratic indifference,” but admitted that “In some minds, Postmodernism was solely a style that resulted in a fair share of widely detested buildings.”

One of those is the Portland Building designed by Michael Graves and built in 1982. In 2017, a development group much like the one in Milwaukee, proposed a remodel of the Portland Building at a cost of at least $200 million.

“The renovation team does have good reason for their proposed radical makeover,” Places Over Time, an architectural and design website, wrote at the time. “In professional architectural jargon, the building is, in fact, a turd.

“Loathed by many, the Portland Building is by far the most out-of-place piece of architecture in the Pacific Northwest.” And yet “this Postmodern shlock” was entered into the National Register in 2011 “which is an absolutely ludicrous notion in itself,” Places Over Time wrote.

Advocates in Chicago fought for years to include the James R. Thompson Center, but last year the current owner asked that the nomination be rescinded.

Unlike funding mechanisms like tax increment financing districts or sales taxes that help build and maintain stadiums like those formerly known as Miller Park, historic tax credits have not been the subject of much criticism.

Since the partnership started in 1976, more than 49,000 projects, backed by nearly $132 billion in private investment, got some level of federal and state tax credit support, according to a 2023 Park Service report.

Although the most recent report we could find was way back in 2015, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and The Milwaukee Preservation Alliance counted 154 historic projects, $621 million in private investment and more than 6,000 jobs created since 2001 in Wisconsin.

“This tax incentive more than pays for itself,” the report said. “Over the life of the program, $24 billion in tax credits have generated more than $28.6 billion in ​​​​federal tax revenue associated with historic rehabilitation projects.”

Significantly, conservative Gov. Scott Walker, initially a skeptic of historic tax credits, backed and signed a bill in 2013 that raised the credit from 5% to 20% and lifted a cap on the amount the program could spend in any one year.

The principals with 100 East Propco LLC have not said whether their apartment conversion is contingent upon getting historic tax credits, although ​​​​Vassallo — whom the Badger Institute could not reach for comment — told the local paper, “It’s a very tight project. Tough (financing) environment.”

None of it will happen unless the National Park Service has a sudden urge to side with the postmodernists.

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.

/* = 0;if(!is_postback){return;}var form_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_wrapper_21’);var is_confirmation = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_confirmation_wrapper_21’).length > 0;var is_redirect = contents.indexOf(‘gformRedirect(){‘) >= 0;var is_form = form_content.length > 0 && ! is_redirect && ! is_confirmation;var mt = parseInt(jQuery(‘html’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + parseInt(jQuery(‘body’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + 100;if(is_form){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).html(form_content.html());if(form_content.hasClass(‘gform_validation_error’)){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).addClass(‘gform_validation_error’);} else {jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).removeClass(‘gform_validation_error’);}setTimeout( function() { /* delay the scroll by 50 milliseconds to fix a bug in chrome */ jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).offset().top – mt); }, 50 );if(window[‘gformInitDatepicker’]) {gformInitDatepicker();}if(window[‘gformInitPriceFields’]) {gformInitPriceFields();}var current_page = jQuery(‘#gform_source_page_number_21’).val();gformInitSpinner( 21, ‘https://e74sq7k37a8.exactdn.com/wp-content/plugins/gravityforms/images/spinner.svg’, true );jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_page_loaded’, [21, current_page]);window[‘gf_submitting_21’] = false;}else if(!is_redirect){var confirmation_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘.GF_AJAX_POSTBACK’).html();if(!confirmation_content){confirmation_content = contents;}jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).replaceWith(confirmation_content);jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gf_21’).offset().top – mt);jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_confirmation_loaded’, [21]);window[‘gf_submitting_21’] = false;wp.a11y.speak(jQuery(‘#gform_confirmation_message_21’).text());}else{jQuery(‘#gform_21’).append(contents);if(window[‘gformRedirect’]) {gformRedirect();}}jQuery(document).trigger(“gform_pre_post_render”, [{ formId: “21”, currentPage: “current_page”, abort: function() { this.preventDefault(); } }]); if (event && event.defaultPrevented) { return; } const gformWrapperDiv = document.getElementById( “gform_wrapper_21” ); if ( gformWrapperDiv ) { const visibilitySpan = document.createElement( “span” ); visibilitySpan.id = “gform_visibility_test_21”; gformWrapperDiv.insertAdjacentElement( “afterend”, visibilitySpan ); } const visibilityTestDiv = document.getElementById( “gform_visibility_test_21” ); let postRenderFired = false; function triggerPostRender() { if ( postRenderFired ) { return; } postRenderFired = true; jQuery( document ).trigger( ‘gform_post_render’, [21, current_page] ); gform.utils.trigger( { event: ‘gform/postRender’, native: false, data: { formId: 21, currentPage: current_page } } ); if ( visibilityTestDiv ) { visibilityTestDiv.parentNode.removeChild( visibilityTestDiv ); } } function debounce( func, wait, immediate ) { var timeout; return function() { var context = this, args = arguments; var later = function() { timeout = null; if ( !immediate ) func.apply( context, args ); }; var callNow = immediate && !timeout; clearTimeout( timeout ); timeout = setTimeout( later, wait ); if ( callNow ) func.apply( context, args ); }; } const debouncedTriggerPostRender = debounce( function() { triggerPostRender(); }, 200 ); if ( visibilityTestDiv && visibilityTestDiv.offsetParent === null ) { const observer = new MutationObserver( ( mutations ) => { mutations.forEach( ( mutation ) => { if ( mutation.type === ‘attributes’ && visibilityTestDiv.offsetParent !== null ) { debouncedTriggerPostRender(); observer.disconnect(); } }); }); observer.observe( document.body, { attributes: true, childList: false, subtree: true, attributeFilter: [ ‘style’, ‘class’ ], }); } else { triggerPostRender(); } } );} );
/* ]]> */

The post Preserving history or just tax breaks? appeared first on Badger Institute.