Does Seattle have too many historic landmarks?
A preservationist questions the current boom in landmark nominations, wondering if people with NIMBY agendas are hurting the process by trying to lower the bar for historic properties. He also steps into the middle of the Ballard Denny's conroversy.
Are too many Seattle buildings being considered for landmark status? At least one dedicated preservationist thinks so. He's Larry E. Johnson, a Seattle architect and consultant. He is on the board of Historic Seattle, the preservation group. He's also worked for many local developers, such as Justen Co. and Wright Runstad.
Johnson was on my radar screen because he's involved with the controversial development project by Rhapsody Partners, of Kirkland and Las Vegas, that would demolish a longtime Denny's restaurant in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. Some experts have questioned whether the architecturally unusual diner should be torn down because it is the work of an important West Coast mid-century modern architect named Clarence Mayhew. Some experts say it's an excellent example of eccentric post-war roadside Googie architecture.
The Denny's was recently featured KUOW-FM's Weekday program as part of a look at local modern architecture. The program opened with an architectural tour of North Seattle with Susan Boyle and Eugenia Woo of the modern architecture preservation group DoCoMoMo-WeWA, with host Steve Scher and me tagging along. Guests also included Googie expert Al Hess and Alan Michelson, head of the University of Washington's Library of Architecture and Planning. A podcast of the show can be found here.
The 1964 Denny's restaurant was saved from the wrecking ball once before, back in the 1980s, when the people of Ballard protested that it was an important local landmark – sometimes referred to as the "Taj Mahal of Ballard" – and a gathering place, especially for the neighborhood's seniors, who loved its earlier incarnation as a Manning's cafeteria, a Western chain that grew out of a single coffee company based at the Pike Place Market.
Johnson is involved because Rhapsody has let go the first consultant it hired, Mildred Andrews, a respected historian I met earlier this summer. Andrews had been picked to put together a city landmark nomination for the building. It is common for property owners and developers to nominate their own buildings for landmark status, often in hopes that such nominations will be rejected so that demolition and redevelopment can proceed. Rhapsody does not believe the Denny's is landmark-worthy.
That can create potential conflicts of interest for historians and consultants, who are paid by property owners who often don't want their properties protected. Make a strong case for an historic building and you undercut the guy signing your paycheck; make a weak case and you could be enabling the destruction of a significant structure. At best, preservation consultants walk a mighty thin line between the community's interests and their employers'.
Andrews did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview about her departure. Johnson said that she produced a "well-prepared" report on the building's significance, and he was hired to complete the process of compiling the nomination. He also said that Rhapsody was unhappy that Andrews had talked to the press, referring to a comment of hers reported on Crosscut. There is also speculation that Andrews may have made too strong a case for the building. Johnson declined to characterize his views about the Denny's building.
Last week, the Ballard News-Tribune's Rebekah Schilperoort reported on the consultant switch. Rhapsody has also hired longtime local public relations whiz Louie Richmond. He's not only fielding questions about the historic status of the project but trying to smooth over criticism of the developer's plans. Some in the neighborhood worry that the proposed development isn't pedestrian-friendly. Richmond assures that the design is not final.
The News-Tribune story also carried some provocative observations by consultant Johnson regarding the state of the landmarking in Seattle:
Johnson is concerned that nominating a building for historic status has become the new way to fight unwanted development.
"I think all these fights – we're reacting to change, such rapid change," he said.
The city's all-volunteer landmark board already has its hands full with considering the designation of 38 downtown buildings, he said, and their time shouldn't be used inefficiently.
"We're scraping the bottom of the barell [sic] (sometimes)," Johnson said. "We can't keep everything and we shouldn't be throwing everything out either."
I asked Johnson if he was referring to the Ballard Denny's as an example of obstructionism and he says no, that he was providing context for what's happening more generally in town. But he absolutely thinks that there are too many projects being proposed for landmark status and that NIMBY's are abusing the process.
The example he offers is Waldo Hospital in the Maple Leaf neighborhood. Johnson was the consultant to Camp Fire, the owners of the property. Camp Fire plans to turn a park-like site into townhouses. Johnson says the hospital clearly didn't meet the criteria for landmark status – though it is listed by the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation as one of the state's "most endangered" properties. He says the process was used by activists to try and stop development mostly because the land contains many old trees (some call it "Waldo Forest"). "That's not what [the landmark law] was intended to do," he says. Johnson won that fight. The city declined to landmark the building in July.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism by becoming a member of Crosscut.com today!
Comments:
Posted Mon, Sep 17, 11:23 a.m. inappropriate
What's a Nimby? - I wonder what Greenspan would say...: This is an interesting case study of 'NIMBYISM' (Not In My Backyard). The subject has been of interest ever since I moved to Seattle, studying economics at the University of Washington and getting involved in my community - volunteering to help the Broadway/Capitol Hill BIA started and working on Land Use Issues at Seattle University. (My college job was managing an Apartment Building across the street from SU - I can take a fair amount of credit for the final disposition of the SU master plan through a land swap with the City that resulted in the new mixed use on 12th, the new playfield, as well as some affordable housing for Jesuit staff.)
Although I'd consider Peter Steinbrueck, at this point, a friend I've lost touch with, I actually opposed his CAP initiative - which greatly limited growth downtown. I remember being at the screaming end of 'neighbors' on that subject - though even that didn't even come close to the tirade I received from a couple working for the affirmative action office of Seattle in regards to their hate of the enlightened conservatives of SU.
Personal tangents aside - it is my conclusion that NIMBYism is really just an example of neighborhood folks playing the same corporate backstabing game against the downtown crew - the one they more than likely did not win in their working careers.
Tit for Tat if you will, but at a point it definitely become dysfunctional. Most disturbing are those folks who actually make a living off of the variety of these situations. I think the word for them is troublemaker.
Now a good controversy is a good thing, but when it comes loaded with hate and hidden agendas, as well as a profit motive, that's a dangerous brew - not too mention, often, a complete waste of money - if not an actual, criminal, fraud.
The wonk in my head starts to talk inside my head now. There ought to be, at least in theory, a way to work these things out.
My preliminary thought - waiting to be tested - is that the core problem is the economics of development as it relates to the government - and the solution should be simply one of supply and demand, not merely one's ability to harass another - no matter what the personal motive might be.
That get's to the question of growth management - charging developers a bigger portion of the costs their new density will impose - but also charging government - or, if they choose, the neighbors themselves, for the costs of restricting future development. In this way priorities would be set in proportion with, at least, economic benefits.
But this is not so cold as one might think. Do recall that it is the value of a private house and the quality of life it provides which is driving our economy more than anything else right now.
But then again, as I've left Seattle, it is none of my business!
Have at it folks, just don't ask for the State to bail you out - even if you do disguise the request as a Sound Transit or a Viaduct budget!
-Douglas Tooley
Lincoln District, Tacoma
Posted Mon, Sep 17, 11:46 a.m. inappropriate
Out with the new, in with the old: I am just as worried about the quality and design of the innumerable new structures springing up around our metropolis then I am about the loss of significant older buildings. Many fine edifices, some albeit not worthy of "landmarking" are being demolished to be replaced by the worst crap imaginable -- poorly designed eyesores constructed of code-worthy but inferior materials. Mr. Johnson, unfortunately, adds little to the debate, by seeming to support the canard that any complaints by people about "development" in their neighborhoods is NIMBYism, forgetting that not in my backyard may not be about offending bourgeois sensibilities, but about many very correct complaints about the development steamroller that is overwhelming this city. And our city government is at war with itself, with employees and politicians saying they are on top of the demands for landmarking reviews and perhaps slowing things down, with the mayor and others working against it by willy-nilly approving so much new construction (and demolition). I may not be a fan of Denny's arhcitecture, but once gone it will never be again. And unless we do better, it is likely to be replaced by something more unsightly and with no redeeming virtues, even fifty years from now.
Posted Mon, Sep 17, 1:57 p.m. inappropriate
Too Many Nominations? Compared to What?: The suggestion that Seattleites are nominating too many buildings as landmarks is ludicrous. While the number has spiked with the addition of 38 planned nominations with another 50 or so in the wings, the total nominations is miniscule compared to the thousands if not tens of thousands of building permits for millions of square feet of new construction over the past decade or more. I'd bet more structures have been demolished in the past year than have ever been saved by historic preservation advocates.
If it were true (which it isn't) that nominations represent a NIMBY reaction to the uncontrolled remodeling of Seattle, it's as if a mouse were attacking a roaring lion. Developers and their supporters are now apparently reduced to ad hominem attacks on neighborhood activists and preservationists nipping at their heels. They fail to understand that historic preservation is not about old buildings and never had been. It is an attempt--in ways similar to other land-use laws--to manage the change that each of us and our children have to live with with decades to come. And historic preservation in particular is a recognition that there are more important values than "highest and best use" of land, which in the law always refers to maximizing dollar value. Memory and community identity can't be monetized, but it can be protected.
Posted Tue, Sep 18, 8:11 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Too Many Nominations? Compared to What?: Personally, I wish there would have been more of a movement for this several years ago. Perhaps Seattle wouldn't have lost some of the beautiful buildings that were razed. When I travel to other cities around the country it is the older buildings that have the most character, Seattle included.