dallashistory

Slump leads to fewer teardown fights between Dallas preservationists, builders

07:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 16, 2009
By DAVID FLICK / The Dallas Morning News
dflick@dallasnews.com

For preservationists, sometimes the best that can happen is nothing at all.

Katherine Seale, director of Preservation Dallas, said the most striking change she has noticed recently in her North Dallas neighborhood has been the lack of change – the teardowns of nearby ranch-style houses has all but ceased.

The reason is the recession.

"There's an old joke that goes: 'A bad economy is a preservationist's best friend.' People get hurt in times like these, so it's not particularly funny," Seale said. "But it is true."

Fewer houses and buildings are under construction, so fewer older ones are torn down. The decrease in threats to historically significant structures is hard to quantify but impossible to miss.

For several years, Seale's organization regularly sent out frantic – and, ultimately, futile – alerts:

In December 2006, the art deco house of architect George Dahl in Highland Park was leveled. In 2007, the Georgian-style YWCA building in Old East Dallas was knocked down for a rehabilitation center. In April 2008, bulldozers appeared on a Sunday morning to demolish a vintage insurance building on Turtle Creek Boulevard.

This year – silence.

Kate Singleton, whose job in the city of Dallas planning department includes checking demolition requests to see if they involve preservation-worthy structures, said it has been two months since one came across her desk. And that was for a house that had been damaged by fire and was deemed a safety hazard.

"We just haven't seen a lot of stuff lately," she said.

The number of demolition requests for structures in historic districts has declined swiftly this year.

According to Singleton, there were 21 such requests in 2006, 26 in 2008, but only eight in the first half of 2009.

She has worked for the city off and on since the late 1970s.

"I've been in two downturns, and I'm on my third," she said. "I've seen this happen before."

At the very least, Singleton said, recessions buy time.

"It allows us to take a breath and tell people about some of our incentive programs and how we can help developers and homeowners work with what they've got," she said.

Trouble ahead?

Still, Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt has misgivings.

Preservationists have been cheered in recent years by the beefed-up preservation staffing in the city's planning office, she noted. But the recession has decimated the city budget, and now some of those jobs are slated for elimination.

"My fear is that when the economy improves, I think the teardowns will return," she said, "but there will be fewer staff members to help on preservation issues."

While acknowledging that the economic downturn has decreased pressure on older neighborhoods, she said, "I think this whole thing is a double-edged sword.'

Wilson Fuqua, an architect who specializes in the Park Cities, said he also believes that the wave of teardowns will return once the economy bounces back.

But it appears to have slowed down significantly for now, he said. People are working with what they have.

"There's always a little more remodeling during a downturn than there is new construction. It's like people will fix up a car rather than buy a new one," he said.

He noted that some neighborhoods across the country now considered architectural gems were saved by recessions that lasted until public opinion changed. The style of their structures was given time to pass from "outdated" to "historic."

"Let's face it, a lot of places were preserved because bad times came at a good time," he said.

In that sense, the current bad times may be coming at a good time for midcentury modern architecture, which was just beginning to get hot when the economy cooled off.

The downturn was too late to save a midcentury ranch house across from Seale's residence. It was torn down last summer.

But it has yet to be replaced by the type of larger, more contemporary house that has altered the character of other older neighborhoods.

Since then, the yard has sat empty, except for a succession of signs that have announced, "Custom-built lot," "Lot for sale" and "Will build to suit."

Jerry Ries, the builder who owns the lot across the street from Seale, said he tore down the midcentury home because it was run-down to the point that rehabilitation was financially impractical. He is hoping to build something more contemporary.

He has no idea how long before a new house will be built because it's too risky to build without a client lined up.

"All you can do is wait out this tightening in the economy," he said. "Until things turn around, it's not practical to build on spec."

Saving an old building from a bulldozer, of course, is not the same as restoring it. True historic preservation can be expensive.

Marcus victory

Among the highest profile victories for local preservationists was last summer when the current owner of the Lakewood home of Stanley Marcus reversed himself and decided to save it from demolition. Since then, he has estimated that restoring it will cost at least 50 percent more than simply tearing it down and starting over.

Marcel Quimby, co-owner of the Quimby McCoy Preservation Architecture firm, said her company has seen such an increase in work that she has recently hired three new employees. But she noted that her clients are largely institutional and not as vulnerable as private owners to financial downturns.

But Seale sees hope.

The end of what some people call the Second Gilded Age may dampen the taste for the mega-houses that often replaced modest older homes, she said.

"When all this is over, I think conspicuous consumption will be much less in vogue," she said. "People will look at the turret in front of these new houses and wonder if it's really necessary."

Demolitions Demolitions in Dallas' 15 historic districts and among 119 individual historic structures:
'06 '07 '08 '09*
House 1 7 14 0
Accessory buildings 9 6 10 8
Commercial buildings 0 8 2 0
Total 10 21 26 8
*Through June 15
SOURCE : City of Dallas
END OF ARTICLE