And Now Recycled Buildings

In Salt Lake City, an unprepossessing group of trolley barns built in 1908 houses a thriving shopping and entertainment center. In Chicago, a seven-decade-old building that served variously as a hospital and a whorehouse is now a popular restaurant. In San Antonio, a vast brewery is being converted into an art museum. In San Francisco, a plant that once processed chicken feathers for pillow stuffing has been transformed into an office building. In Galveston, New Orleans, New York and scores of other U.S. cities, old buildings are being put to new uses. They are, in the current jargon, being recycled.

Preservationists have long known that the best way to save architectural landmarks--great structures that catch the eye and stir the soul--is to find modern uses for them. Now the lesson is being increasingly applied to lowly warehouses, seedy hotels, abandoned stables and other cavernous buildings. These are the very structures that not long ago would have been judged blighted, then torn down and lost.

What makes the difference today is money. Because the price of building materials has skyrocketed--structural steel now costs 45% more than it did last year--developers see the old buildings as readymade packages of materials. Even after knocking out walls, putting in new wiring and plumbing, and meeting tough new fire codes, recycling a structure can cost 25% to 35% less than building anew. Says Chicago Developer Ed Noonan: "It's making a lemon into lemonade."

Friendly Structures. Like lemonade, the result tends to please almost everybody. Says Charles Gill, a planning official in San Francisco: "Tenants end up with larger spaces, bigger windows, higher ceilings and generally a more pleasant environment." The city benefits through increased property taxes; for example, since 1970, when Seattle developers started fixing up the Skid Road area of late 19th century buildings, property values in the 74-acre district have risen 450%. There is another fringe benefit: old buildings, unlike today's unvaried glass and steel boxes, are visual reminders of a city's individuality. "They are friendly structures," says Michael Leventhal of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "They have detail and lend a sense of history and precedence."

Contrary Approach. To be recycled, buildings must conform to an economic law as iron-cast as their own beams or facades: they must pay their way. The entrepreneur begins with a solid old structure that is well served by transportation facilities or on the fringes of desirable downtown areas. When architects come in to assess conversion problems, they have to take an approach contrary to all of their training; instead of form following function, function has to follow form. "We simply deal with what we find," says Boston Architect Paul McGinley of Anderson Notter Associates Inc. "The old building itself determines the kinds of spaces you make." When the plans are completed, says Architect Roger Lang of Boston's Stahl-Bennett Inc., "you still have to find a banker who is willing to believe that you can make that funny old wharf into a funny new condominium building."

Once started, the recycling projects sometimes prove to be more complicated than the entrepreneurs had anticipated. A case in point is the 1902 Mission Inn in Riverside, Calif. An eclectic architectural confection (mostly Spanish colonial, Moorish and Gothic), the hotel sprawls over one and a half city blocks, and until the early 1950s was a favorite stopping place for Hollywood stars and other celebrities. Teddy Roosevelt planted a tree in one of the many patios, and Richard Nixon was married, prophetically, in the presidential suite. After the clientele dwindled, developers planned to turn the inn into a sort of city within a city--boutiques, apartments, stores and restaurants. But the scheme was too complicated. Having spent more than $2 million to get the project about 70% built, the developers ran out of money and into bankruptcy proceedings. Saving the Mission Inn right now seems to be a mission impossible.

Out of the Gloom. Nonetheless, even harder jobs have been successfully carried out. In Boston, the city and its redevelopment agency unscrambled a jumble of deeds on three blocks of old market buildings near the waterfront. Now Developer James Rouse and Architect Ben Thompson are converting the colonial structures into a $21 million complex of shops and offices--in effect, a 20th century version of their 18th century use. In Minneapolis, the Butler Building, a huge, gloomy warehouse, looked beyond rescue. But half of it has been stripped to its brick walls and Douglas fir beams, cleaned up, and subdivided into bright, handsome stores and offices. So pleased is Developer Charles B. Coyer Jr. that he plans to make the other half into a 296-room hotel.

In downtown Los Angeles, the 1896 Bradbury Building, a fantasy of wrought-iron tracery and glass that was originally a prestigious office building, seemed hopelessly impractical for modern use. Yet the extraordinary old structure has been spruced up and turned into 54 offices for architects, lawyers and other professional people who want a central location in the sprawling city. As of last week, only one office was unrented.

The recycling rage shows no signs of abating. Amtrak is now negotiating with Chicago Architect Harry Weese to make preliminary renovation designs for 16 of its railroad stations between Boston and Washington. Looking even further ahead, New York Architect Norman Pfeiffer is studying ways to reuse the schools that were built for the post-World War II baby boom and are now becoming surplus. As many as 20,000 school buildings may be closed within a decade; Pfeiffer believes they can be used for everything from community health clinics to art workshops to apartment houses.

All the renewed interest in old structures may even affect new construction. Once people see the advantages of the old buildings' spaciousness and craftsmanship, says San Francisco Architect Don Knorr, "you won't be able to get away with selling just 8-ft.-high cubicles any more."

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