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Charlotte-on-the-James?
Construction, Pavement Threaten Historic Richmond
SELDEN RICHARDSON
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Sunday, April 9, 2006
To live in Richmond today is to marvel at the number of attractive, creative, and successful renovations of traditionally industrial and office buildings that have taken place in recent years. Having outlived their original purposes, buildings as diverse as an antebellum tobacco warehouse, a box factory, a funeral parlor, and a bakery are all finding new life and new uses as either residential or small-scale commercial enterprises. These are the magnets that draw people downtown and rejuvenate the city core. Yet all of this economic success appears to be lost on state-level decision-makers intent on destroying some of our prominent landmark buildings rather than adaptively reusing them to Richmond's benefit.
At stake are the 8th and 9th Street Office Buildings (the former Richmond and Murphy Hotels), the iconic MCV West Hospital and A.D. Williams Clinic, and the Medical College of Virginia's Cabaniss Hall on Broad Street. All are threatened with demolition by the Commonwealth of Virginia and its agent, VCU, but all can be adaptively reused at a savings of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Unlike government contractors, private developers can take advantage of lucrative Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits. Converted to appropriate new uses -- perhaps a combination of offices and apartments these landmark buildings could drive a badly needed economic rebirth of the Broad Street corridor. Wouldn't that be preferable to more of the same bland and banal architecture that has turned the area north of Broad Street around VCU into a reflective plate-glass funhouse of forgettable boxes? Shouldn't the public have a say?
State-Sponsored Neglect
Although the buildings are owned by the public, the public has no voice in determining the fate of edifices built and maintained with its taxes. And in this, one of America's most historic cities, the state has no effective process for the protection of state-owned landmarks, which is why so many of our city's character-defining buildings are now imperiled. Because local building codes and preservation protections do not apply to the state, the state can -- and does -- allow its buildings to be demolished by neglect.
Among the greatest proponents of the drive to refashion Richmond into Charlotte-on-the-James are VCU president Eugene Trani and State Senator John Chichester, the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which plays a large role in the fate of our public buildings. Trani, remarking on the appeal of VCU, said to Virginia Business magazine, ironically, "Many students come from Fairfax or Hampton Roads looking for an education in an urban setting, and they get that at VCU. In fact, it's an urban setting like no other in Virginia."
This uniqueness is precisely what makes Richmond what it is and what draws young people from other Virginia cities. These students, like the tourists who come to our city, come to experience the tree-shaded neighborhoods, the variety of the streetscapes, and the energy and history inherent in our old and historic buildings. No one chooses to go to school in Richmond to savor the surface parking lots, sterile plazas, and generic concrete garages that have crept into the historic Carver neighborhood, threatened Oregon Hill, consumed entire blocks of Jackson Ward, and utterly erased Navy Hill.
To the Private Sector?
Chichester, who drives down from Fredericksburg to experiment in urban planning in our city, admits, "We never have sufficient revenue to work down the huge backlog of deferred maintenance at our colleges and other state-owned buildings." If that is the case, then let the private sector assume the burden of acquiring, re-engineering, and reinventing such structures as the Murphy Hotel and West Hospital.
Mayor Doug Wilder has endorsed a plan to establish an Urban Law Center in downtown Richmond in cooperation with the University of Richmond's law school just the kind of bold and creative solution that could save irreplaceable landmarks, help repopulate the city, generate spending, and revitalize downtown, something no new state office and parking complex ever will do.
The previous Governor left office without making a decision about the Richmond and Murphy Hotels. Their fate -- and that of the other endangered downtown landmarks -- will be decided by his successor, Governor Tim Kaine, whose approval is required for the demolition of state-owned buildings.
Virginians will see whether former Mayor Kaine will stand with current Mayor Wilder in his call for the state to show some respect for its host city. Will Governor Kaine respond to the common sense of good economics and creative city planning? Or will he continue to allow the Commonwealth -- including VCU -- to run roughshod over Richmond?
Governor, the future of downtown Richmond is at stake, and your help is urgently needed to control the remorseless cycle of demolition threatening the fabric of our historic city.
A Richmond resident, Selden Richardson is an architectural historian for the Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods (ACORN). His Commentary Columns on historic preservation will appear regularly on the Public Square page.