{"id":11473,"date":"2024-07-03T20:52:24","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T20:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=11473"},"modified":"2024-07-03T20:58:45","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T20:58:45","slug":"preserving-history-or-just-tax-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=11473","title":{"rendered":"Preserving history or just tax breaks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/preserving-history-or-just-tax-breaks\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Commission wants derided 35-year-old 100 East building on National Register<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
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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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200band state tax credits on the expense of converting the office building it bought for $28.75 million into apartments.<\/p>\n

The process is notoriously tough. The project needs approval<\/a> of the State Historic \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bPreservation Officer and the National Park Service.<\/p>\n

Maybe the toughest part of the process is trying to figure out just exactly what makes a building historic.<\/p>\n

The Park Service criteria<\/a> includes, among other things, \u201cthe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case of 100 East, it\u2019s 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. \u201cI think it\u2019s hard to argue against that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Young architects like those at Clark, Tribble, Harris & Li, <\/strong>the Charlotte, North Carolina <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Preservation Commission.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 Milwaukee, said, \u201cThe decoration is all out of proportion and because it\u2019s a parody of City Hall, it makes City Hall look bad. I think it\u2019s done a lot of damage to downtown. It\u2019s a bad joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a pointed lack of consensus about postmodernism. Architectural Record in February scolded<\/a> local preservationists for their \u201cbureaucratic indifference,\u201d but admitted that \u201cIn some minds, Postmodernism was solely a style that resulted in a fair share of widely detested buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe renovation team does have good reason for their proposed radical makeover,\u201d Places Over Time, an architectural and design website, wrote at the time. \u201cIn professional architectural jargon, the building is, in fact, a turd.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoathed by many, the Portland Building is by far the most out-of-place piece of architecture in the Pacific Northwest.\u201d And yet \u201cthis Postmodern shlock\u201d was entered into the National Register in 2011 \u201cwhich is an absolutely ludicrous notion in itself,\u201d Places Over Time wrote.<\/p>\n

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.<\/a><\/p>\n

Unlike funding mechanisms\u00a0like 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although the most recent report<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis tax incentive more than pays for itself,\u201d the report said. \u201cOver the life of the program, $24 billion in tax credits have generated more than $28.6 billion in \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bfederal tax revenue associated with historic rehabilitation projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The principals with 100 East Propco LLC have not said whether their apartment conversion is contingent upon getting historic tax credits, although \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bVassallo \u2014 whom the Badger Institute could not reach for comment \u2014 told the local paper, \u201cIt\u2019s a very tight project. Tough (financing) environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of it will happen unless the National Park Service has a sudden urge to side with the postmodernists.<\/p>\n

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.\u00a0Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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