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Monday, December 5, 2005

National Trust Case Study on Century Building Released

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has posted its Case Study on the Old Post Office and Century Building, which comes in at a whopping 76 pages. The document was released to members awhile ago but not posted on the website immediately. Included is a commentary/rebuttal by Carolyn Toft of Landmarks Association, written without her being able to read the Case Study first.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I quickly read the Executive Summary. Most of it seems reasonable.

However, I think there is one serious error.

They may have based one conclusion on faulty information. They stated that building a parking garage on the north lot would have been more costly because the parcel was smaller.

That fact needs to be checked. A simple review of historic plats should suffice.

I paced off both the Century footprint and the perimeter of the north lot.

From those crude measurements, the vacant area of north lot had more square footage (albeit with an irregular boundary on the north side...and not sure if the vacant area includes some Roberts' owned properties.

That seems like a weak justification for the full case, which they then went on to say didn't mean much anyway since all political and business leadership in St. Louis supported the Century demolition option.

I like the way the Trust's investment arm will now only proceed on investments when they have endorsements from local preservation groups. St. Louis makes history again!