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Monday, October 23, 2006

Preservation Board Meeting Today

The Preservation Board meets today at 4:00 p.m. The agenda isn't marked with items of great interest, although some nominations to the National Register of Historic Places are intriguing. For instance, Melinda Winchester of Lafser Associates is nominating the General American Life Insurance Building on Market Street, which was completed in 1977 from a design by Phillip Johnson. This nomination is interesting because the National Register requires special significance to be proven for a building built within the last fifty years. With the Johnson pedigree, the buidling should not have difficulty. (For the record, I wrote two of the nominations being considered today: those of the Robert E. Lee Hotel and the William Cuthbert Jones House.)

Far be it from me to be quick complain without being quick to compliment: the Preservation Board agenda, often only published hours before the meeting, was posted online weeks in advance, with summary statements behind each item even on the tentative agenda. The full copy of the agenda was delivere to me by courier on Friday. This is very good work by the board and the staff of the city's Cultural Resources Office.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on having two of your nominations approved by the board for recommendation to the state.

Doug Duckworth said...

Did Kennedy attend?

Anonymous said...

Alderman Kennedy attended.

PE

Anonymous said...

Ald. Kennedy left early, though.

And the Jones House nomination was on the agenda posted online but missing from the agenda of the meeting. What's the deal?

Anonymous said...

Alderman Kennedy asked the chair if his leaving to attend a community meeting would affect the board's ability to render quorum decisions. Informed that it would not, he left after the reviews and appeal. He would not have been the deciding vote on any of the subsequent National Register nominations.

Two interesting discussions developed on the inherent eligibility of the General American Life Building and the RamCo compound. It will be interesting to see what SHPO staff does next.

PE