Sacramento Preservation/Adaptive Reuse Projects

[wburg]

Saw this in the SN&R (Bites column) today and thought it bore repeating. I dropped it on the main page but figured nobody reads my "preservation/adaptive reuse" threads anyhow...
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=690217

Last month Bites reported that Rex Cycles was moving, and that the developer was considering knocking down the historic buildings on 20th Street and Capitol Avenue.

“We’re doing everything per proper protocol to see if it does have any historical value,” developer Michael Heller told Bites at the time.

Turns out the demolition was already a done deal.

Bites got hold of a report from an architectural consultant hired to assess the buildings’ historic value. The evaluation was completed weeks before the conversation with Heller.

The consultant found that the two buildings on the property were “examples of vernacular commercial storefront architecture, but have little historical or architectural significance.”

The buildings were built in 1915, and first used as a vet hospital and a laundry shop. In the late 1920s, they became auto repair shops. The buildings were more than 50 years old, which triggered the need for at least some cursory historic review.

But the property “does not contribute to the historic fabric of the 20th and Capitol Area,” according to the report.

Good enough for the city. The demolition was approved. On June 21, the buildings were razed and carted away, and the lot was fenced in.

Bites is no expert on historic preservation, but wonders what the hurry was. After all, the city’s Development Services department says Heller’s put in no application to develop anything. So it’ll be an empty lot for who knows how long.

Maybe the buildings were only a little bit historic, just a little significant. But they looked a lot cooler than a chain-link fence.