CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The board that oversees the special property tax fund for downtown Corpus Christi has given a preliminary nod to using as much as $2 million to tear down the 1914 Nueces County Courthouse — but not without several city officials first expressing displeasure over the approach that was employed to push the issue.

The Nueces County Commissioners Court had vowed to exit an economic development program that relies on downtown property tax values, should the board deny the funding.

Corpus Christi City Councilman Gil Hernandez, also a board member, said during the Jan. 13 meeting that although he supported financing the teardown, he didn’t appreciate the county’s “methods that are being used for it.”

He initially used the word “extortion” and later described it in the subsequent City Council meeting as “coercion.”

“Ultimately, I agree that we can participate with tearing down the old courthouse — I know it’s been an odyssey for the county for many, many years,” Hernandez said. “I’m in support of the funding, but again, this could have been handled a little bit differently.”

Nueces County Commissioner Mike Pusley, also a board member, took exception to the county’s position being referenced as extortion. There is a partnership in improving downtown, and demolishing the old courthouse would serve as a benefit to the area, he said.

“Extortion is a terrible thing to say, and I’m just really disappointed in that,” Pusley said. “What I’m trying to do is salvage our partnership.”

The board that oversees the economic development program — known as a tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ) — approved amending a project and financing plan that outlines the uses of funding. The 11-1 vote was for the plan to include among allowable uses as much as $2 million for the demolition of government buildings.

The approval by the TIRZ board, and subsequently the Corpus Christi City Council, was not specific to the 1914 Nueces County Courthouse. A contract specific to the proposed demolition of the historic courthouse is expected to be brought to the board and the City Council for consideration on Jan. 27.

A TIRZ functions by taxing entities contributing to the program a portion of new or increased property taxes from a certain area, which would otherwise go to their respective budgets. The TIRZ revenue is then steered back into the area where it was collected for improvements.

TIRZ revenue cannot be used for purposes other than improving the area from which it was drawn. The idea is that reinvesting the funding will spur more economic development and thus increase property values.

The county, which joined the TIRZ in 2009, has contributed about $5.5 million during that span, said Arlene Medrano, executive director of the Downtown Management District.

The city has contributed about $12 million, she said.

Should the county withdraw from the program, the downtown TIRZ would stand to lose about $370,000 annually, Medrano said. Without renewal of a 20-year contract, the loss would total about $8.7 million, she added.

Some county commissioners have criticized how TIRZ funding has been used, contending that city projects, not county ones, are the primary beneficiaries.

Conversely, several City Council members have disagreed with the county’s assessment, instead suggesting that all projects provide a benefit to all participating taxing entities.

Funding to raze the crumbling, 112-year-old courthouse has been the only ask since the county joined the TIRZ, according to Pusley.

The courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 but abandoned a year later when the county moved operations to a new building. Last year, the Texas Historical Commission removed the historical preservation easement from the old courthouse, allowing potential demolition.

While some observers have lamented the anticipated demolition of the courthouse, several commissioners have said it’s the only reasonable conclusion due to long vacancy and corresponding deterioration. Attempts over the years to rescue the building through sale and redevelopment have been unsuccessful and, at this point, infeasible due to the structure’s state, some officials have said.

Tearing down the building will mitigate blight in the downtown area, Medrano told the board.

“This has been an eyesore in the downtown, in our city, for 48 years,” she said. “This is the gateway into downtown, and so we receive millions of cars and traffic every year and that’s the first thing that they see.”

Several City Council members, all of whom serve on the TIRZ board, raised concerns about the future of the property and the lack of plans for immediate redevelopment.

The county intends to sell what Pusley believes will be valuable property, he said. However, a buyer has not been identified.

It’s unclear how much it will cost to raze the building. Pusley said contractors have estimated demolition to cost between $1.5 million and $2 million; however, that price doesn’t consider asbestos remediation that is being evaluated.

Under the county’s proposal, requested funding would be a reimbursement of as much as $2 million over a three-year period. Any additional costs for the demolition would be covered by the county, Pusley said. One potential source would be proceeds from a recent sale of property to the Port of Corpus Christi, he added.

There is a bigger picture to be considered for the area, Mayor Paulette Guajardo said.

“At the end of the day, this is a partnership … that maybe the communication kind of went astray,” she said.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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New rules adopted by the city of Portland will make it easier for developers to renovate historic properties while keeping the original structures intact.

The changes to city code, which were approved by the City Council on Jan. 26, take effect on March 1. The code changes allow property owners to do more without going before the Historic Landmarks Commission for approval.

“The goal is increasing housing opportunity, enabling adaptive reuse, but also ensuring strong demolition protection,” said Brandon Spencer-Hartle, project manager for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

Among the changes:

• Additional housing units (such as ADUs) are allowed in historic districts “by right,” meaning they don’t need special land-use permission.
• Former churches and other historic structures are able to be renovated for other uses more easily.
• Historic homes can be renovated without going through a hearing. By-right work items include solar installation, windows, electrical and mechanical upgrades. Fewer changes will require a hearing by the Historic Landmarks Commission. Minor exterior alterations will not be reviewed, but additions and major exterior alterations are subject to a review – in most cases at the staff level. Some large-scale changes would require the commission’s approval.

The code amendments’ enactment culminates two years of work by city staff, elected officials and the Planning and Sustainability and Historic Landmarks commissions. City officials successfully lobbied for a change in state law that partially decouples local historic resource protections from listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Portland historic landmarks are still protected from demolition, but not changes in design. Previously, Oregon was the only state that automatically conferred protection from demolition and design changes to historic landmarks.

“I’m excited to see tenants, building owners and professionals get creative with the flexibility provided by this code so that our historic places can continue to inform us of the past and better serve the needs of future Portlanders,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said as the City Council approved the amendments Jan. 26 in a unanimous vote.

The code changes should make it easier to do some projects, said Rick Michaelson, president of Inner City Properties, a Portland development firm that often tackles adaptive reuse projects.

“The code amendments are a step in the right direction,” Michaelson said. “They are simplifying processes; they are allowing more options for adaptive reuse.”

State building codes need to be further changed to allow for more flexibility, Michaelson said. For example, if a building owner converts a single-family home to a duplex, it falls under one section of the building code. But if the owner opts for a triplex, it falls under a separate section.

Sarah Stevenson, executive director of Innovative Housing Inc., said she supports any changes that make expensive and difficult adaptive reuse projects easier to accomplish.

Spencer-Hartle predicted the code changes will result in a spike in solar installation in historic districts, garage-to-ADU conversions and second ADUs on properties that already have one additional unit. “There is a long list of people who have been waiting to install solar,” he said.

The updated rules no longer require onsite parking. And residential units are not limited within a historic structure.

Design guidelines – including height limits in historic districts – were not changed. Likewise, a state law that requires the property owner’s consent to designate a historic landmark remains.

City officials hope the new rules result in a generation of well-loved adaptive reuse projects, similar to those done by McMenamins at historic structures in Oregon and Washington. The zoning code “would essentially give Kennedy School-like flexibility to our historic landmarks city-wide,” Spencer-Hartle said, referring to the popular Northeast Portland elementary school that was turned into a McMenamins movie theater, brewery and restaurant venue.

Portland leaders have also worked to diversify historic landmarks, adding protections to the Billy Webb Elks Lodge, an institution in North Portland’s Black community, and the Darcelle XV Showplace, a well-known downtown drag club.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty has pushed for greater recognition of landmarks from communities that have been excluded from historic preservation.

“We have been clear that the status quo around historic preservation cannot continue without an acknowledgement of all of the people left out – all of the cultural, institutions and neighborhoods who just aren’t reflected today,” she said.

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An eight-month rehabilitation of Oregon City’s historic Ermatinger House, the third-oldest in the state, is in its final stages. The house was built in 1845 and hosted the coin toss between Francis Pettygrove and Asa Lovejoy that decided the name of the city of Portland. It served as a museum before being closed more than four years ago due to structural deficiencies including sagging joists, a crumbling foundation, non-plumb walls and dry rot. Restore Oregon placed it on its list of Oregon’s Most Endangered Places in 2011.

General contractor TS Gray Construction began renovations last August, working closely in conjunction with Architectural Resources Group Inc. and WRK Engineers. The structure was jacked up to allow for demolition of the foundation. About 450 cubic yards of dirt were excavated out from underneath the house to allow for construction of a new basement and foundation. The balloon-framed building was re-leveled, and outfitted with new posts, and steel I-beams for seismic support. Beams in the basement support the ground level, and laminated veneer lumber beams were installed along portions of the house.

The house was outfitted with new electrical, plumbing and heating systems, as well as battery backup and aspirating smoke detector systems. A new roof and insulation were installed over the original soldered metal roof, which remains in place. Remaining work on the project is mostly cosmetic, including trim and finish work, landscaping and painting. Floors will be lightly sanded, with patch-in pieces stained to match the original wood. The project is slated for completion next month.

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A photo of the Bank of California Building on its opening day in 1925 tells a story of the era.

A well-dressed bank manager, kerchief in his breast pocket, stands in the middle of a large, marbled and mausoleum-like lobby. Men in white shirts and ties stand behind caged, teller windows, and bob-haired women in shin-high, fringed dresses look on from a rear doorway.

Today, the building, at 330 S.W. Sixth Ave., still is held in high regard. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and on its nomination form it was described as “one of the most elegant buildings in the metropolitan area of Portland.” Now, the three-story structure is available for lease.

It was one of the last buildings designed by noted architect A.E. Doyle, who died in 1928. Doyle designed many downtown Portland buildings, including the Benson Hotel, Meier & Frank Building, the U.S. Bank Building and early buildings at Reed College.

The Bank of California Building features Italian-Renaissance Palazzo style, which was popular in the 1920s. Two sister buildings are the 10-story Pacific Building, at 520 S.W. Yamhill St., and the Public Service Building, at 1120 S.W. Fifth Ave.

Banks and investment companies have occupied the Bank of California Building over the years. Presently, Picoco LLC, based in Newport Beach, Calif., is leasing the building. Company representatives did not return calls seeking comment.

Block by Block is a weekly look at commercial real estate around Portland. Send suggestions for properties to BlockxBlock@djcOregon.com.

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In 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake leveled much of Christchurch, New Zealand.

“Their downtown is dead,” said Jay Raskin, principal of , and an adviser of the . “It’s gone. It’s still empty and they’re trying to figure out how to build it back. Portland could very easily look like Christchurch.”

Scientists have predicted that a magnitude 8 or 9 earthquake will strike Western Oregon within the next 50 years. At particular risk are the state’s 5,000 to 10,000 unreinforced masonry buildings (approximately 1,700 are in Portland) that would likely collapse in such an event.

The HPLO recently released a report, “Resilient Masonry Buildings – Saving Lives, Livelihoods, and the Livability of Oregon’s Historic Downtowns,” that outlines strategies for preserving Oregon’s inventory of unreinforced masonry buildings constructed between 1846 and 1940. The report found that while the structures play a vital role in Oregon’s economy, demand is lacking for seismic upgrades.

HPLO Executive Director Peggy Moretti, said the total worth of unreinforced masonry buildings in Portland is approximately $350 million; for Oregon, it’s billions of dollars. Moretti said rehabilitating those buildings could provide a large amount of work for contractors.

“Then there is the cost of not doing something and this earthquake happens, and then you have all these communities whose downtown is gone,” she said. “All the businesses are out of business (and) all the people in the apartments have no place to live, no place to go to school. What is the economic impact of doing nothing?”

For the city of Jacksonville, a seismic event could topple an entire industry.

In 1966, the former boomtown became the first city in Oregon designated as a National Historic Landmark District. More than 100 buildings were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Altogether, they represent a tourist attraction that could not be replaced if a major seismic event were to occur.

The most notable building is the former Jackson County Courthouse, which was built in 1884. Today, the building is vacant; however, Amy Stevenson, planning director for the city of Jacksonville, said it’s in the process of acquiring the building from the county. The city is hoping to revitalize the structure and three other historic properties.

A seismic upgrade at the courthouse would cost between $332,500 and $415,625, according to the HPLO report. Stevenson said the city will seek grants to pay for work that would be too costly otherwise.

That’s not an uncommon problem with unreinforced masonry buildings.

“You’re usually spending $25 to $40 per square foot just on seismic upgrades, let alone the initial renovation costs,” said Ross Plambeck, a former Portland Development Commission senior project manager who participated in one of four roundtables that preceded the HPLO report. “You get into all these issues about what you can charge per square foot (for seismic work) and usually you can’t charge enough.”

In its report, the HPLO suggests adopting a seismic rating system for unreinforced masonry buildings. Brandon Spencer-Hartle, field services manager for the HPLO, said that could be as simple as hanging a plaque on a building’s front door.

“The idea is that we need to build public demand for those buildings,” Spencer-Hartle said. “Everything boils down to economics, and one thing we heard is that there isn’t that much payback to invest in a seismic upgrade.”

Another idea is to extend best practices for dealing with unreinforced masonry buildings throughout the state.

For instance, Plambeck said the city of Portland is flexible enough to let building owners perform upgrades over a period of years. The HPLO, in its report, suggests that other municipalities also adopt a phased approach.

Plambeck said another issue is that no viable incentives exist to spur rehabilitation of unreinforced masonry buildings. Federal tax credits are too narrowly focused on large remodels, and Oregon’s property tax freeze system is outdated, he said.

The report recommends creating new state and local tax incentives, as well as a new insurance pool for historic structures. Moretti said this would be the focus of next year’s roundtables.

For now, she said the HPLO plans to present this year’s report to local and state legislators to see whether they can get the ball rolling. She also sees a poignant lesson in Christchurch.

“Their downtown commercial district is still closed – even the buildings that survived are surrounded by rubble,” Moretti said. “If you’re (constructing) a new building in the Pearl District, you should be concerned about your neighbor’s building that might fall around your building. Or, if those buildings are gone, you’ve just lost critical mass.”

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The clubhouse at the Rose City Golf Course has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The clubhouse, made of brick with steep, pitched roofs, was designed by architect Herbert A Angell. It was built in 1932, about nine years after the golf course opened, so golfers could have a place to mingle. The Rose City Golf Course itself is the second oldest municipal course in Portland; Eastmoreland is the oldest.

“It was built in an era where golf was more than just a recreational game, where people came together socially to talk golf and enjoy the camaraderie of the game,” said golf pro Hank Childs. “It’s a wonderful part of the game that now is rare to find, but still exists today at [Rose City].”

The clubhouse today houses the Rose City Grill restaurant and a shop named after Childs. Since the building was originally built, a rock fireplace has been added, as well as large finished beams with a fir tongue and grove ceiling.

Parks officials hope to use the listing to get new funds for a restoration of the clubhouse.

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Officials in Dallas, Ore., are still deciding whether they want to sell or lease the town’s aging Carnegie library, but they are certain about one thing: They need to spend money on the 101-year-old building so someone will eventually want to buy or lease it.

Kids Inc., a youth sports program, used the building until the boiler broke down in November. City officials announced plans this month to install a new heating and cooling system later this year. Even though new tenants are not coming in, Community Development Director John Locke said a heating and cooling system is necessary to maintain the integrity of the building.

The library was built in 1911 with $10,000 from philanthropist and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. It is one of 31 Carnegie libraries in Oregon. All told, Carnegie bankrolled some 2,510 libraries from 1883 to 1929 in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, Fiji and the Caribbean. Almost every town that applied for a library grant and agreed to Carnegie’s terms received money.

Almost every library had a lamppost or lantern as a symbol of enlightenment.

Dallas officials dedicated a new library in 1990.

The old Carnegie building has a split-level that makes it difficult for handicap accessibility. Its unique design provides an odd mixture of both possibilities and limitations, he said. There are no plans, he added, to demolish the building.

Other historic local buildings have not been so lucky. Dallas’ National Guard armory, just a year or so younger than the historic library, stood a couple of blocks away until it was demolished last April.

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Peggy Moretti, the executive director of the , wants to preserve more than old buildings.

She also wants to preserve building industry professionals’ peace of mind.

They sometimes react negatively, she said, when they hear the words “historic preservation.” She hopes to change that today when developers, contractors, engineers, preservationists and others meet to discuss the fates of aging and unreinforced masonry buildings.

“We want people to know that the Historic Preservation League of Oregon is not a bunch of people who want things preserved in amber and are too attached to the sepia-toned past,” she said. “We want to be facilitators of solutions, not purveyors of ‘no.’ ”

When Moretti helps lead the group’s third annual preservation roundtable, she hopes the brainstorming produces real-world solutions that preserve the charm of the past without impeding the development of the future. Approximately 50 people will gather to discuss what can be done to protect vulnerable masonry buildings.

There are a lot of them in Oregon, and few could withstand a major earthquake, Moretti said. The Association Building, a masonry structure in downtown Woodburn, has remained an empty shell since it was nearly reduced to rubble during an earthquake on March 25, 1993.

A similar fate awaits many buildings if people fail to act, Moretti said.

“They’re just everywhere,” she said. “We need to get to the business of reinforcement.”

Examples of vulnerable structures in Oregon range from quaint, old apartment buildings in Northwest Portland to those occupying main streets of many small towns.

Today’s meeting is actually the fourth in a series about unreinforced masonry buildings in Oregon. Previous meetings have taken place in Jacksonville, Astoria and Pendleton. Jacksonville serves as a major example of the problem, Moretti said.

“There hardly wouldn’t be a Jacksonville without its masonry buildings,” she said.

The preservation roundtable is an annual meeting to address a particular, and sometimes controversial, topic of concern. This is the third such meeting.

The first two roundtables dealt with main street issues and appropriate infill for historic neighborhoods. As with those meetings, this one will result in a detailed report. Moretti said the report will be unveiled Oct. 25, when the league celebrates its 35th anniversary.

One of the issues sure to be on the table today is how old buildings can be used for new purposes. For example, Oregon has 31 masonry libraries donated to various communities by steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie between 1901 and 1915. Only a few are still used as libraries because their communities long since outgrew them. Many are used for museum space and other purposes.

Moretti was an entrepreneur in the Bay Area before she moved to Oregon 10 years ago. She said she likes to see old buildings reused and made profitable.

“We’re all about adapted use without abandoning any of the charm of the buildings,” she said.

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A group campaigning for the Buckman neighborhood in Southeast Portland to become a historic district recently was thrown a curve ball.

A procedural tool that would have frozen the Buckman Historic Association’s application for listing on the National Register of Historic Places was deemed inapplicable by the state. Now, after five years of work, the Buckman group is facing a fall deadline to submit its application.

Christine Yun, an architect at and a main driver for the BHA, believes a historic designation would help citizens influence what kind of development occurs in their neighborhood. Past proposals in the area have called for demolishing century-old homes to make way for new multifamily complexes.

“Right now it is the only citizen-initiated avenue of … voice over what kind of development happens in our city,” she said. “The current zoning code … all it talks about is what is allowed to the developer by right, and it doesn’t talk about what the neighborhood can ask for by right.”

But in March, in the face of overwhelming opposition from neighborhood residents concerned that a historic designation would disproportionately raise the cost of design review for home improvements, the BHA opted to delay its effort seeking a Determination of Eligibility.

Since applying for the DOE in February, the BHA has formed a think tank to try and figure out ways to make the design review process more palatable to residents. The Portland Coalition for Historic Resources represents the Buckman and Irvington neighborhoods, the Bosco-Milligan Foundation and the Portland branch of the American Institute of Architects’ Historic Resources Committee. The coalition’s primary goal is to identify ways to lower design review fees for simple home improvements.

Yun said the BHA plans to host small home gatherings in the coming months to discuss in greater detail the possibility of Buckman becoming a historic district.

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In the mid 1800s, John McLoughlin made a ton of money working for the Hudson’s Bay Company and built a house in Oregon City, where he helped starving immigrants arriving into the region via the Oregon Trail.

His home still exists today – it was the first building in Oregon placed on the National Register of Historic Places. But its historical significance makes even more egregious the fact that it now has one of the most historically inaccurate roofs in Oregon.

When the National Park System took over the McLoughlin House and the adjoining Barclay House in 2003, they discovered immediately that the roofs on both homes had been shoddily replaced at some point, but they had to dig to figure out what materials should be used to create historically accurate replacements.

When McLoughlin built his house in 1846, lumber mills were still very rare in the area, so roofs were made primarily with hand-split, wooden shakes. At some point, the original roof had been replaced with asbestos shingles. They remained until last yea, when a $16,500 job put newly split cedar shakes on the old home.

Then there’s the The Barclay House: it was constructed only three years after the McLoughlin House, but the region’s wood industry had changed significantly in the meantime.

By the time the Barclay House was built in 1849, numerous saw mills were operating in the area, according to Alex Patterson, facility manager for the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. Last week, Vancouver-based Advanced Roofing completed a $15,000 job to replace the asphalt shingles with historically accurate cedar shingles.

Now the roofs are authentic to their respective time periods, everyone in Oregon City can sleep soundly again, and we all know more about some changes that occurred in the building industry more than 150 years ago.

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