While it’s tempting to want to put these historic cities in formaldehyde, to embalm them and shun anything modern, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley says that’s not a viable answer.

“A historic city should be a living place,” Riley said. “Because if you don’t have that, then it’s a former something. A former once-great city that now is pretty to see.”

Charleston has the oldest historic district in the country. It’s carefully preserved the city’s grand public buildings, as well as the mansions along the Battery, and of course, the famous Rainbow Row.

The city’s signature, however, is the Charleston “single house” — tall, slender homes with two-tiered piazzas (we’d call them porches) that often look out over a private garden. It’s an architectural fabric that new buildings have a hard time matching.

“You know, it’s like there is this beautiful painting that has been painted and you have an opportunity to paint something within that beautiful painting,” said Riley. “You’ve got to be careful that in what you paint there, you don’t detract from the overall context of what has been created.”

There are some excellent visuals in the piece, which you can watch via the embed here (take it to full-screen and it’s better; sorry if you have to wade through a 15-second commercial):

Only two Savannahians are chosen for the interviews — architect Christian Sottile and historian John Duncan. (Great choices, and both friends of mine, I’m proud to say.) The focus of the piece doesn’t extend very deep into the real world issues we’re dealing with, but the segment provides a solid overview of the general arguments about incorporating contemporary architectural styles in cities like Savannah and Charleston that still have so much historic architecture, generally from the 19th century.

I feel like the piece would have been better if it had provided quick glimpses of other buildings in Savannah that might have seemed shockingly new for their time — including Drayton Tower, the Owens-Thomas House, and the old Greyhound station that now holds The Grey. Here’s a photo of The Grey:

I’m not going to go on and on about it here, but I do think that Savannah’s historic guidelines have led contemporary architects to follow a predictable template for new construction — they end up designing buildings that they know can be approved rather than exploring boundaries.

At the end of the day, Charleston seems to have a similar problem, as noted in the segment regarding the controversy over a proposed and later scrapped contemporary design for Clemson’s School of Architecture building in Charleston.

I find it so interesting that only one of those 100 properties is in the Landmark Historic District. As I note in the column, that fact speaks to the history of preservation in Savannah: a lot of the most obvious battles are over — many won, some lost.

At this point the real dangers to Savannah’s historic architecture have less to do with blight than with an insufficient commitment to preservation of buildings that are in pretty good shape, both inside and outside the Landmark District. For example, there is a lawsuit about whether Ben Carter Enterprises will be allowed to demolish an obviously historic building on West Broughton Street [UPDATE: looks like as I was writing this post, Julia Ritchey was posting an article about the Historic Savannah Foundation withdrawing the lawsuit that stood in the way of the demolition], a gorgeous 100+ year old home on 37th Street might be destroyed for the building of a church, and the city of Savannah plans to demolish 36 historic rental properties that have been occupied for well over a century by working class black families so that they can build a new Central Precinct.

So here are a few iPhone shots of the only building in the Landmark District that made the city’s list of most blighted properties. It’s at 602 Montgomery St. — the corner of Montgomery and Huntingdon (just a few short blocks from Chatham Square). Click here for the property record card.

I love this building. It is obviously not appropriately secured — boards down, windows broken, other detritus on site — but the basic structure appears sound and some great details remain intact.

I sure hope we see real efforts to save properties like this and to deny their demolition, whether that be active demolition to build something else or demolition by neglect.

The homes slated for demolition were built for African-American workers beginning in the 1880s — they are obviously some of the oldest and most historic homes in the neighborhoods south of Forsyth Park.

Click here for my last big post on this blog, with various other links.

Today’s column, despite all the numbers, has a pretty simple point. The city arbitrarily removed any site with less than 1.6 acres from consideration. That decision was made without consulting city engineers about the feasibility of specific smaller sites.

And there is abundant evidence that a smaller site would suffice.

The city claims it needs a building with a footprint of 20,000 square feet and 75 parking spaces.

The old Sears building site bounded by Henry, Bull, Duffy, and Drayton is exactly 1.6 acres.

The Sears site, as currently configured, holds a building with a 28,000 square foot footprint (and about 90,000 total square feet), 106 parking spaces, and space for 25-30 on-street parking spaces.

To be clear, I think the Sears site is a pretty bad one for a new precinct, but it makes a great example of just how big 1.6 acres really is. (By the way, if you don’t like numbers, just go stand at the corner of Henry and Bull and take a look.)

It’s obvious that the station could fit on a smaller site, especially if we take into account potential on-street parking.

The city rejected two 1.3 acre Montgomery Street sites, neither of which seems to have any particular historic value, arbitrarily:

Click here to view the entire site selection report.

There are other elements to this story that I do not address in the column, including the various ways in which a public building with so much parking actually works against the revitalization that the city claims will be encouraged in the neighborhood.

I also do not touch on the rather ugly symbolism of all this — of claiming that replacing historic low-income rental properties with a police station is a good way to improve a struggling, largely African-American neighborhood.

The only good news is that the city has time to revoke the deal.

UPDATE 6/29: I have followed up with an additional post (Flawed search process propelled Savannahâ€s plans to raze historic cottages for a new police station), so cruise on over there after checking out the background info here.

Or maybe we will get lucky and the demolition will actually take place during the National Preservation Conference, which is being held in Savannah in November. It could be a good object lesson for attendees that even the most historic of cities can get things horribly wrong, and, at the end of the day, no matter how much lip service folks pay to the needs for historic preservation, for affordable housing, and for the honoring of long-neglected black history in America’s cities, hypocrisy and money are still the trump cards.

The city of Savannah’s plan involves an entire city block bounded by 33rd, MLK, 34th, and Montgomery, plus the adjacent half blocks of 33rd and 34th.

Click here to look at the site on Google maps. Note the nice trees in the middle of the block, the uniform simplicity of the architecture, the photos of individual properties across the bottom of the screen.

I have already written critically of the plan in my City Talk column a couple of weeks ago. I noted the historic nature of the homes, but there’s far more history than I knew about at the time.

The houses were constructed between 1882 and 1913. In other words, these are some of the oldest homes south of Forsyth Park — and they also represent one of the first significant developments in the city to provide housing for black residents less than two decades after emancipation.

From Plans for future trump historic past for Savannah’s police precinct project by Eric Curl in today’s Savannah Morning News:

Peter Wiltberger Meldrim bought the land in 1882 and began building the modest cottages to house African-American workers, Harris said, and the area became known as “Meldrim Row.”

Meldrim was a state senator and representative, as well as Savannahâ€s mayor for two years beginning in 1897, before serving as a Superior Court judge of the Eastern Judicial Circuit until his death in 1933.

“Meldrimâ€s development of Meldrim Row is significant as one of the earliest attempts to provide adequate housing for minorities in Georgia,” according to the Cuyler-Brownvilleâ€s National Register of Historic Places registration form.

Just a note on the geography: the parts of Meldrim Row on the west side of MLK are in the Cuyler-Brownsville neighborhood, but the properties slated for demolition are not, at least not according to the map designating the historic district or according to the police department’s neighborhood maps. The site is in the Metropolitan neighborhood. I don’t know that it matters much at the end of the day, but this whole business of reducing crime in Cuyler-Brownsville like everyone keeps talking about? Ridiculous. Not only is the police station across MLK, but keep in mind that we’re talking about one of the stretches of MLK with a long median. A cruiser leaving the precinct would have to go either north or south for three blocks before even being able to cross MLK into Cuyler-Brownsville.

Not only do these properties have a rich history, they were also part of an aggressive attempt to improve the area and provide affordable housing through a public-private partnership just about 20 years ago!

From Eric’s piece today:

The project included about $3 million in development financing used for acquisition and renovation of the 82 units, including a $2.6 million city loan using federal housing grant funds, according to Martin Fretty, the cityâ€s housing department director.

So now the city is going to buy those properties, undo all those efforts, and put up a police station?

Also, in my column a couple weeks ago, I directly addressed the wrong-headedness of thinking that a police station will have such a dramatic transformative effect on the neighborhood. My house backs up to the current Central Precinct, which is right across the lane. But:

In the 18 years Iâ€ve lived right around the corner, my block has seen drug sales, numerous burglaries, stolen bicycles, at least one auto theft, a hit-and-run accident and various other problems. You know, the usual.

By the way, the current Central Precinct location on Bull Street is dramatically, dramatically smaller than the site now being considered. I will be curious to find out why such a large parcel is even needed.

As I have said before, my opinion might be slightly different if there were anything like a land crunch in the neighborhood. There are blighted commercial buildings of no apparent historic value and empty lots throughout the area.

My next step in looking into this decision will be to ask the city for the addresses of the 28 sites that were apparently considered before this stunningly bad decision was made.

By the way, I live in a cottage that dates to the 1870s, and I’ll bet folks would be up in arms if I announced plans that I was selling to someone who planned to demolish it!

This decision seems especially disheartening in a city that has worked so diligently to find a way to save the personal collection of W.W. Law and to relocate the home of Mother Mathilda Beasley. Obviously, by the way, the city could consider putting the new precinct a few blocks north on the site of a historic black-owned pharmacy that is also scheduled for demolition.

Ironically, Mayor Edna Jackson recused herself from the recent council vote because of her friendship with Bob James, one of the principal players in the deal. At public meetings about the I-16 flyover, Jackson has spoken passionately about the wrong that was done in destroying residential properties for the project. So maybe Jackson needs to re-engage and to consider that she is now running a city that is about to destroy some pretty valuable history.

A final few words: The Metropolitan neighborhood has lost a large number of black residents over the last generation and has picked up a lot more white residents. Many longtime residents have little reason to stay — not after years of official toleration of street-level drug dealing and prostitution. Everyone knows that such activity is routine — I see it all the time in the Jefferson Street corridor, and the new precinct won’t be significantly closer to the action than the current one is. If the city moves ahead with this demolition of historic homes that are also affordable, we will almost certainly see an accelerated exit of black residents.

From Eric Curl in the SMN, Forsyth Park stage fountain being removed:

The fountain that was built as part of the sales tax-funded stage project in 2009 is expected to be removed this week and replaced with a landscaped area, according to a memo City Manager Stephanie Cutter sent to the City Council on May 29.

The decision was made after warning signs and 5-foot barricades failed to keep children from playing in the water, even when their parents were present, Cutter said. […]

The spray pool at the site will continue to operate. […]

The removal of the fountain could allow fans to get closer to the stage during performances in which an extended stage is not used for bigger acts, [city spokesperson Bret Bell] said.

Two years ago I posted at length about the design problems: Good intentions + Conflicting agendas = Bad design

That post includes photos of the fountain on a packed day in Forsyth, which also happened to be one of the hottest days to that point in 2012. The spray/play fountain was not on, but the allegedly decorative part of the fountain was on, so the latter was filled with kids — until the police cleared it.

Since the city announced this week that the decorative fountain will be removed, there have been a number of public commentators who have blamed parents for not keeping their kids out of it. But let me defend those parents on three key counts:

1. Design matters. Consider the widened Middleground Road, which has 4-lanes, a median, long straightaways, and little traffic. Is anyone surprised that pretty much every driver significantly exceeds the posted 35 mph limit? The public tends to use public spaces however they have been designed to be used — and that design might say quite different things than the designers’ words. We had a low, pleasant fountain right next to a play fountain — and the play fountain was frequently turned off for no clear reason. Of course kids hoping to play in a fountain on a hot day would get into the “wrong” fountain!

2. Words matter too. Before finishing the fort/”bandshell”/fountain project, city officials and others talked regularly about the interactive fountain. When the fountain was turned on, parents showed up with their kids. Some showed up when the play fountain wasn’t on — and the parents didn’t even know that something wasn’t on. Having been told there was a play fountain, the parents thought the decorative fountain was it. Of course, even if the spray fountain had been turned on all the time, that wouldn’t have kept kids from climbing over the low walls to the decorative part.

3. It’s not just kids who have climbed into the fountain. At least two performers have as well — the drummer for Mutemath last week and Watermelon Slim at the 2013 Savannah Jazz Festival.

The real question now is this: just exactly how will the new space be defined so that we can maximize enjoyment of outdoor shows on the stage? The gulf between fans and performers has really hurt the vibe out there.

Now, if we want to get really serious about improving the design, we need to find out how to elevate performers approximately three more feet above grade — the stage was simply built too low.

From the website for the micro-housing initiative by the Savannah College of Art and Design:

SCADpad embraces and advances the universityâ€s deeply rooted commitment to adaptive reuse by utilizing a parking structure at SCAD Atlanta to create an inspirational and sustainable community that proposes an answer to the growing urban housing challenges cities are facing around the world.

An interdisciplinary group of SCAD students, faculty, and alumni worked for 10 months to design and develop SCADpad—from its architectural footprint to custom furniture to remote home control—to fit in the mere 135-square-feet of a standard parking space.

Each of the three SCADpad units has a unique theme and visual identity, reflecting SCADâ€s global footprint. A common green space extends the living area, creating a community environment.

My friend Jerome Elder is actually living right now at SCADpad in Atlanta. Here’s the video he posted to YouTube, presumably the first of many:

You can click on through this tweet to see what Architectural Record has to say:

And SCADpad is not just in the U.S.:

We’ll check in again soon.

I had lived in the neighborhood for over 15 years before seeing any light at the grand 19th century house, which some may remember as having lattice work nearly completely covering both porches. Only in recent weeks have their been lights as a full restoration has gotten underway.

Back in May, I wrote a City Talk column about the house when the Historic Savannah Foundation was trying to find an appropriate buyer after acquiring the blighted property through the nonprofit’s innovative revolving fund.

The house was subsequently sold to Jim Abraham, a SCAD historic preservation professor with some real credentials. I got to know Jim and saw his thoroughness first hand when he spearheaded the restoration of the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home. I was thrilled when he purchased this other O’Connor house (yes, P.J. and Flannery were related) from the HSF.

And it was sort of thrilling tonight to see it lit up, even if the lights were partially obscured by the scaffolding.

From the Savannah Morning News coverage of the recent sale:

Built in 1885, the P. J. Oâ€Connor House is an architecturally significant Victorian house featuring 2,310 square feet of living space. Located at the corner of 32nd Street and Lincoln Street, the property includes period details like original fireplaces, hardwood floors, molding and gingerbread detailing.

The house was originally built by Savannah attorney, alderman and philanthropist P.J. Oâ€Connor, who served as the National President and National Director of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and was a cousin of legendary Savannah author Flannery Oâ€Connor.

You can get a sense of the quality of interior details in this shot I posted to Instagram back in May:

That particular block of 32nd Street was pretty ramshackle when I moved to Thomas Square back in 1996. The block has looked much better in recent years, but the entire neighborhood has been dragged down by the big neglected house on the corner.

But no more.

The large lot has been vacant for many years. A team of developers led by Brad Baugh is working with architecture and urban design firms Sottile + Sottile on a mixed use development that would subdivide the property into smaller lots, create a modest seven-unit apartment building on the corner, and create townhouses facing both Bull and Park. The development would be primarily residential, but there would be about 800 square feet of commercial space on the corner.

It’s a great plan for a big space like that, but our antiquated zoning codes in that area mean that the plans would need a plethora of variances.

So far, the Zoning Board of Appeals has already signed off on a largely technical issue about allowing mixed use there. On Tuesday, the petitioners have to go to the Metropolitan Planning Commission to get a variance of three parking spaces. That should certainly be granted.

Then they will have to go back to the ZBA to be allowed to divide the lots.

If you’re interested in seeing the plans, the staff report, photos, and other information, click here.

Here’s a screenshot of a detail showing the current plans:

Ironically, the developers could do something really uninteresting, ugly, and incompatible with the rest of the neighborhood without having to get any approvals. We’re lucky we’re not going to see a big box of condos with an unattractive and highly visible parking area in front and/or rear.