Michael Southern and Andrew Edmonds, HPO GIS Coordinator and GIS Technical Support Analyst, respectively, took their HPOWEB dog-and-pony show on the road in November. They presented an overview and tutorial of HPOWEB on three occasions to regional NCDOT and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) staff and engineers.

HPOWEB

The development of HPOWEB supports a longstanding FHWA priority to improve the timeliness and quality of the environmental review process. The HPO developed HPOWEB, in part, for use by state and federal agencies to support a more transparent and streamlined review process of transportation projects. The web mapping tool allows users to quickly search for and identify historic properties and districts within project boundaries, generate tables and maps of affected properties, and link to National Register nominations and photographs of historic properties in recently surveyed counties.  

The GIS team spent some time cultivating another partnership, as well. They, along with Environmental Review Specialist, Justin Kockritz, and Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer, Ramona Bartos, attended day-long workshops sponsored by the South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (SALCC) and held in Cary in late October to develop a blueprint for focusing regional conservation efforts. Historical and archaeological significance were considered in the site selection process, and HPO staff were pleased to speak on behalf of places meeting these key criteria!

Fayetteville (NC) Veterans Administration  Hospital Historic District

Recently, HPO staff traveled to Fayetteville to meet with the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs regarding several proposed projects to meet the growing needs at the historic VA Medical Center. Among these projects is the construction of a stand-alone Community Living Center to provide long-term care to our veterans in a welcoming environment conducive to treatment. The Fayetteville Veterans Administration Hospital Historic District, including the Colonial Revival hospital, nurses' quarters, manager's quarters, service buildings, and the 32-acre campus, were recently listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the Fayetteville (NC) Veterans Administration Hospital Historic District. Also within the district are the historic Confederate Breastworks.

HPO senior restoration specialist Paul Fomberg traveled to Indianapolis to attend "Preservation at the Crossroads," the National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual conference, held October 29 to November 2. The conference headquarters was the rehabilitated Union Depot, a massive Richardsonian Romanesque-style structure built in 1888, with educational sessions in the adjacent hotel located in the former train sheds built between 1915 and 1922 and in a number of other historic venues downtown.

Indianapolis skyline. Photo courtesy of HistoriCorps.org

As the 12th largest city in the U.S., with a current population of more than 800,000 and a metro population of 2 million, Indianapolis offers many examples of historic preservation contributing to the vitality of a number of its neighborhoods and a vibrant downtown marked by a mix of historic and modern buildings. Centered on Monument Circle and anchored by the state government complex with the high-domed Classical Revival-style Indiana Statehouse built in 1887, the downtown district is home to than 20,000 people living in historic houses, converted industrial lofts, and condos and apartments, many occupying high-rise towers. It's a walkable downtown with wide sidewalks and designated bike lanes and bike racks on most streets. In addition to a large convention center and more than 36 hotels, including several located in historic buildings, downtown Indianapolis has a football stadium and a sports arena, a 4-story urban shopping center, performing and visual arts venues, museums, and more than 200 retail shops, including a major grocery store, as well as 300 restaurants, bars, and breweries. Just west of the downtown district is a 25-acre state park and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, with a student body of more than 30,000, while just to the southeast  pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly Company occupies a 100-acre corporate campus.

Paul attended numerous conference sessions, including the opening plenary session with remarks by National Trust president Stephanie Meeks (click here for the full text) on the future of house museums, an overview of Indiana vernacular architecture and its old world precedents by folklorist Henry Glassie, and a reception with German food at the 1894 Athenaeum, built by the city's German immigrants. Paul also attended a session on planning successful tax credit projects presented by NPS staff; one on microbreweries, many of which operate in rehabilitated historic buildings across the country and have been the catalyst for the revitalization of historic areas; and one on the correlation between the social benefits of historic preservation and economic growth.

At a tax credit networking breakfast with other tax credit reviewers, consultants and developers to discuss the future of the federal and state tax credit programs, Paul found it interesting that Iowa has a Historic Preservation and Cultural & Entertainment District Tax Credit that includes separate funds for projects with rehabilitation costs of $500,000 or less, projects in state certified cultural and entertainment districts or identified in Iowa Great Places agreements, projects directly impacted by a disaster declared by the Governor or President, projects resulting in the creation of more than 500 new permanent jobs, and for projects statewide. For more information on Iowa's tax credits, including how they are allocated and prioritized each year, click here.

Paul felt that the most informative educational sessions were on energy efficiency in historic buildings and the preservation and rehabilitation of historic windows. He was surprised to learn that windows typically make up only 10% to 13% of the energy loss in a building, with the roof of a building making up the majority of the energy loss. One of the speakers suggested that replacement windows should instead be referred to as "disposable windows" since the window manufacturers only expect a ten- to fifteen-year useful life for the windows and typically only offer warranties of up to fifteen years; however, the average payback time for residential replacement windows is forty years. The speaker also suggested that the use of R-value by window manufacturers is a misnomer since it is a measure of thermal resistance and is typically used in rating insulation. U-Value, or U-Factor, is a measure of the overall heat transfer coefficient, which is more appropriate for windows since their function is to provide light and air for a building, rather than to insulate it. Recent testing performed by the National Window Preservation Standards Collaborative has demonstrated that simply adding weather stripping to existing windows makes a huge difference in the amount of energy loss-without adding any type of storm window-and that combined with a storm window, existing windows meet or exceed the U-Value, or U-Factor, of new insulated glass windows. The result of the testing has been published in a new book Window Preservation Standards, which is available from the Collaborative.

The final day included a session on mid-century modern architecture and the challenges and opportunities in preserving it. The session included a presentation on the iconic 1963 Miami Marine Stadium designed by Cuban architect Hilario Candela and built for powerboat racing. In the wake of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the structure was declared an unsafe building by the municipal government and was threatened with demolition until very recently. For more information on Miami Marine Stadium, click here.

North Christian Church (1959-1963),  Columbus, IN, designed by Eero Saarinen. Photo courtesy openbuildings.com

The highlight of the final day of the conference was a trip to the nearby city of Columbus, Indiana, the corporate headquarters of Cummins, Inc. (commonly called Cummins Diesel) and known as the Mecca of Modernism due to the city's large collection of notable modern architecture. In 1954, the late J. Irwin Miller, then president and chairman of Cummins Engine Company, established the Cummins Foundation, a charitable program that helped to subsidize a large number of architectural projects throughout the city by up-and-coming engineers and architects, including Eero Saarinen, Eliel Saarinen, I. M. Pei, Kevin Roche, Richard Meier, Harry Weese, César Pelli, Gunnar Birkerts, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Buildings constructed in Columbus as a result of the largesse of the Cummins Foundation included schools, fire stations and churches. Six buildings erected between 1942 and 1965 are designated as National Historic Landmarks and approximately 60 other buildings are considered architectural masterpieces. For more on architecture in Columbus, including a number of intact mid- to late nineteenth-century buildings, click here.