John Shearer: Historic Preservation Town Hall Draws Good Crowd

The packed gathering in the medium-sized meeting room at Second Presbyterian Church downtown Thursday night could have resembled a typical crowd of recent years filling a government building to protest the latest subdivision or apartment project.

Instead, it included roughly 100 or more people gathered to support the historic preservation movement in Chattanooga more generally or at least learn more about issues and ways interested local citizens can help preserve architecturally or historically significant properties. In other words, it was sort of a Preservation Party rally.

As Preserve Chattanooga executive director Todd Morgan quipped in mentioning how his non-profit historic preservation group hopes to become more member and donor focused as it celebrates its 50^th anniversary, “We are going to build this preservation army in Chattanooga.”

His comments came during what was called a Preservation Town Hall, which included speakers talking about various preservation-related news and informational items. And as Mr. Morgan mentioned, it comes at a time when several Chattanooga structures have been lost or are threatened.

He said that this year, the R.H. Hunt-designed Medical Arts Building on McCallie Avenue is threatened with demolition by owner First Presbyterian Church, demolition has begun on the car barns and former Sports Barn building downtown to make way for a Drury Hotel, and the president’s/chancellor’s home at UTC was razed.

Also in recent months, the St. George’s Hotel and some other buildings around Main and Market streets have been torn down, and the former Highland Park Baptist Church was lost to a fire, he said.

Although he did not mention them, several older school buildings have also recently been torn down or are scheduled to be razed in the near future, including the old Tyner high and junior high/middle school academies, the CSLA/Elbert Long School, and White Oak/Dawn elementary. Highland Park Elementary, also designed by R.H. Hunt, was also torn down in recent years.

Mr. Morgan also mentioned the low number of local historic districts (four) and local historic landmarks (only the Frankl Lloyd Wright-designed home on Missionary Ridge), pointing out that many other properties and places could qualify. This helps protect properties from future demolition much better than just being on the National Register of Historic Places does, he said.

“If it is on the National Register, it can be bulldozed tomorrow, but if it’s a local historic district, it falls under the Historic Zoning Commission and there are some guidance and oversight that goes with that,” he told the audience, adding that Chattanooga has not had a good preservation plan since the early 1990s. “We would like to see everything that is National Register worthy be protected locally.”

He emphasized that time is of essence in doing all this. “We’re at that moment in time where we have to decide as a community where do we go from here.”

Fellow town hall panelist Cassie Cline, a preservation planner with the city of Chattanooga, tried to point out that getting a property named as a local historic landmark or local historic district requires only meeting one of 10 criteria. That included the property being architecturally or historically significant or on the National Register.

And councils, associations or groups or owners can make application for approval, she said.

“You have the power to make a change,” she told the group in summation.

Another panelist, Kelly Helton, the general manager of the soon-to-open Waymark hotel in the old Chattanooga Bank Building, discussed all the preservation work taking place with it as an example of a historic building being preserved, restored and reused.

She said that the building had undergone renovations in the 1950s and 1970s, and that under the direction of HK Architecture and Grace construction firm, it is being refitted into a hotel. However, much is still being retained on the interior, she said. That includes the white marble staircase and thresholds, some original terrazzo flooring, some brass elevator floor dial work, the mail drop and some directional signage.

It also has an original bank vault that will become the location of a speakeasy-style bar.

Outside, many windows are being preserved, and the terra cotta work is being repaired and replaced where needed by the firm, Gladding McBean. “It has been really cool to see very slowly the puzzled pieces filled in,” she said, adding of the entire building, “It has so much character that embodies Chattanooga.”

The fourth panelist, but second speaker -- county historian Linda Moss Mines -- tried to articulate the significance of historic preservation as being very important in simply learning and understanding history or being a historian. In fact, her heartily expressed words almost sounded more like a preservation rallying cry.

“When I envision history, I envision a multicolored tapestry of bright and subtle hues, and there is a golden thread woven throughout that tapestry that represents historic preservation. Without that thread, the tapestry of our nation unravels dismally.”

Continuing the pep talk-like mini-speech, she added, “Historic buildings and sites offer a direct connection to the past. They allow us to study and interpret history through physical evidence. We have the opportunity in this community in many locations to literally walk in the footsteps of those who have experienced this community before we were present.

“I know you have felt a tingle when you walk into the presence of a historic building or sit and you feel this breath of past voices raise the hair on the back of your necks.”

During a question-and-answer session after the panelists spoke in a program moderated by Ray Bassett of WUTC, a member of the Chattanooga Music Club who had worked on restoring the Austin pipe organ at Memorial Auditorium asked if individual items can be protected. Mr. Morgan said that they can, adding that the doors and other parts of the dome building at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo have a conservation easement of protection.

A man who said he played for the Chattanooga Lookouts back in the 1980s and moved back to Chattanooga after being in New York mentioned a recent reunion for former Lookouts players. They went by the unused Engel Stadium and were saddened at what they saw, he said.

“It brought tears to their eyes,” he said, saying that Chattanooga should do like other cities like Birmingham have done and preserve their historic ballparks.

Mr. Morgan added that some talk has been taking place over the UTC-owned facility, saying, “It is really put up or shut up time on Engel Stadium. There’s a rumbling of people becoming passionate over what to do. There are a lot of conversations happening around the stadium, and it would be a shame to lose it.”

Someone encouraged that the large sign atop the old Chattanooga Choo-Choo dome be restored, and Mr. Morgan said that has also been on their radar. He said the sign is not part of the protected part of the dome terminal building and that conversations have been held with owner Northpond Partners. However, the cost to fully restore it is about $500,000, he said.

The sign was briefly turned on by accident recently, he said, and that caused a buzz of brief excitement among the community.

Mr. Morgan added that Preserve Chattanooga will also hold its Chattanooga Preserve Awards program on Sept. 18 at the Read House Silver Ballroom. The featured speaker is Donovan Rypkema of PlaceEconomics. He has written a well-known book about the economic benefits of historic preservation.

Along that same line, Mr. Morgan had mentioned that the preserved Biltmore mansion in Asheville, N.C., has had as positive an economic impact on that city as the large Volkswagen plant has had on Chattanooga.

The closest home to Biltmore that Chattanooga had – the 34,000-square-foot Lyndhurst mansion of wealthy Coca-Cola bottler J.T. Lupton – was torn down in 1960.

* * *

Jcshearer2@comcast.net