Proposed Building could give good Jolt to Electric Alley Downtown

There's a Hearing Notice for a fascinating project on the alley between Court and Chemeketa, and Commercial and Liberty.

It's in the Downtown Historic District, and so the Hearing will be at the Historic Landmarks Commission.

Intact portion of Eldridge Block (L) and
Modified England-Wade building (R)

As it comes to us today, the building in question, currently called "the England-Wade building," was remodeled at the middle of the last century. It's the green box. It does not look very distinctive or historical.

In the National Register Nomination, authors note the remodel, but still claim it should be regarded as a "historic contributing" resource.

In the National Register Nomination

(Nomination continued)

There are several other buildings downtown whose bones appear to be about as old or older, but which did receive more stylish and attractive moderne remodels. The Nomination is very squishy on them as a group:

[T]he presence of several buildings designed or remodeled in the Modern period throughout the district clearly convey the impact of the national post-World War II boom in building construction on developmental changes in Salem's commercial core. Several buildings in the district underwent substantial exterior remodeling on the main facade during the 1940s. They include the: Breyman Brothers Block (two buildings at 174-180 Commercial, NE), England Block (216-220 Commercial, NE), England-Wade Building (two buildings at 236 Commercial, NE), Steusloff Building (399 Court), Brewer Block (405 Court), and the Hughes-Durbin Building (160 Liberty, NE). Although varied in style, buildings in the Salem Downtown Historic District share similar proportions and classical design elements that give the district an overall visual cohesion.

Here's the original building — two of them, apparently. One with three window units, the other with four.

The building in 1892
(Salem Library Historic Photos
and compare in 1940)

The bones of the building make some kind of claim, but so much of our approach to historic designation is about aesthetics from the curb, and the facade of the current building is heavily altered, very generic and dull. It has lost vital "integrity."

The remodel c.1950 also places it at the very edge of the official "period of significance," "c.1867-68 - c.1950," for the district.

So by date the building occupies some kind of middle ground in significance, and regarding it fully as an "historic contributing" resource is a stretch. As it is, given the information in the Nomination (which we will see is thin!) ,"historic non-contributing" might be more accurate.

The new front with new clerestory windows
(They are filled in and blocked currently)

The project doesn't do much to the storefront facing the street, and there's nothing to say about that. It will be interesting if that part attracts any criticism.

But in back there's a warehousey box separate from the main building, apparently a c.1950 pole barn, proposed to be demolished. (Pole barn here means construction method, not any farming or livestock function.)

The box is a c.1950 pole barn, to be demolished

The Hearing Notice lacks detail, and there is sure to be a whole lot more in the Staff Report when it comes out, but the proposed replacement looks like housing!

This looks like alley housing!

So that's pretty exciting.

Damien Gilley talking about "Mirror Maze"
via Twitter (July 2017)

The alley already has a non-historical geometric motif in the "Mirror Maze" mural. The rectilinear motif in the proposed building design itself should not be a reason to reject the building as if that motif was too modern somehow. That ship has sailed! The building's scale is also within proportions for that downtown area. And if it is indeed housing, that's something of which we need more, whether market-rate or not.

How can it possibly be regarded as anything other than an improvement from the windowless box that is currently there?

Hopefully any criticism of the proposed building will not hide behind an historical NIMBYism.

As is too often the case, the information in the National Register Nomination is a little incomplete, and in emphasizing William England's activity as "an early wagon maker," it misses his real significance in a slightly later period. That's another reason criticism of the project based on the published Nomination will be of dubious value.

From the Nomination's entry on the related building to the immediate south, the England Block (not pictured here):

William England purchased this site in the 1860s; mortgages taken out against the property in 1877 suggest that the existing building may have been constructed that year. The "England Block," which included an additional adjoining building to the north, appears on the 1884 Sanborn fire insurance company map of Salem, Oregon. This building also appears in an 1886 photograph of Commercial Street. At that time and for the next seventy years, the southern two-thirds of the two-story brick England Block (comprising the present building) featured two store fronts, each with three sash windows with semi-elliptical heads and low relief ornamentation above. Typical of most Italianate style buildings, the England Block featured a projecting roof cornice with decorative brackets below, and an ornate plaque with finial raised above the roofline parapet. (This ornamentation was later removed.)

Very little is presently known about William England. He arrived in Salem early in the town's commercial development, and owned the parcel on which this block stands from the 1860s to the mid-1880s. In an 1873 city directory, he is listed as a wagon maker. In the 1880s the building on this lot was used for a "carriage repository"; in the 1890s two shops occupied the building, a sewing machine shop and a bicycle shop. R. M. Wade bought this building from England in the mid-1880s.

We can now make the primary association with the State Insurance Company and the Williams & England bank rather than with wagon making.

January 3rd, 1901

The two obituaries for William England strike somewhat different tones, and the one in the afternoon paper, stressing "the business failures that wrecked his firm," is in some ways more significant for us today.

January 4th, 1901

The building could be an opportunity to talk more about the Panic of 1893 and following bank failures.

Nov. 14th, 1895

You may recall that the Williams & England Bank failed in the depression associated with and following the Panic of 1893. This is history we have lost or deliberately forgot.

The State Insurance Company, whose remnant first floor was recently demolished, used the bank and was impacted by the bank's failure. England was one of the incorporators of the insurance company also. The two firms were closely related with several common investors and incorporators and ongoing business relations.

January 7th, 1887

And before they purchased the building on the corner of Chemeketa and Commercial and moved into it, which we know today as the State Insurance building, they "began business in a little office on the first floor of the Williams & England block...."

That's part of this building and the next door building to the immediate south.

The 1884 Sanborn map shows the "England block" and the 1895 Sanborn map shows it more filled in.

1884 and 1895 Sanborn maps
(Library of Congress)

One thing to consider is that the building walls and lot lines have shifted over the years, and the current building doesn't correspond very well to the earlier ones. The identity of the "historic" core of any building at this site is ambiguous and amorphous.

1895 Sanborn and modern aerial

As I read it, the yellow portion on the modern aerial was earlier part of the buildings associated with England, the part labeled 292 Commercial Street on the Sanborn (recall there was a major addressing change in 1904). In the 1892 photo above, note how the awning extends partway across the building, but not all the way. The awning is continuous to the corner. The building labeled 296 Commercial (a warehouse in 1884 and for hops in 1895) then wrapped around and incorporated the 292 building, which split off from the corner building at some point. There were other changes like this also.

There is reason then to think the historic name for at least the south half of the building might be Williams & England block rather than England-Wade. England-Wade appears to be something of a made up name, based on the 1895 configuration and Wade's purchase of the building, and composed by modern authors for the Historic District Nomination.

Insisting on one name or the other is not terribly important right now, but the earlier name does place William England more squarely in Salem history than merely as wagon maker.

The Sanborn maps also show an annex building on the alley in roughly the same location as the proposed new building. In spirit, the alley building very much fits the fabric of the historic period. (It will be interesting if that pole barn has some vestigial 19th century parts!)

There should be no historic grounds to oppose this new building:

• The current history for the building doesn't capture very well what is most significant about the building and its place in our history. It is not expressing historic narrative or historic value.
  
• Even a revised history for the building must grapple with the remodel and the fact that the State Insurance Building is also gone now. The remodeled building does not point very well to any sense of 19th century history or to William England's life.
  
• The Historic District's period of significance is so broad and chimerical that is is not really telling anything meaningful about Salem history, either. The district does not in fact cohere very much.
  
• The England-Wade building is not very distinctive, and does not seem to merit special protections. (In contrast to the much more intact Eldridge block next door, aka Greenbaums, which does merit a higher level of protection. By contrast, the England Block next door to the south is discounted with a "historic non-contributing" label. The England-Wade building is more like this building than like the Eldridge Block!) In any case, the older part of the building is not much altered in the proposal at hand. Only the mid-century windowless shed.
  
• The proposed building preserves the existing scale of downtown in that area, and represents no disruption to the urban fabric. In fact, as housing, it represents an improvement to the urban fabric.
  

It will be very interesting to read any criticism of the project, whether from City Staff or from the citizenry. 

The Hearing will be on November 16h at the Historic Landmarks Commission. There is sure to be more to say later!

Addendum, November 12th

The HLC Staff Report recommends approval, and there does not seem to be a whole lot more to say after all.

They share a little more on uses:

The applicant is proposing to use the ground floor tenant spaces of the historic building for personal services (laundromat) and commercial entertainment (comedy club) uses and is proposing a multi-family residential use containing four units for the upper floor residential. The applicant is proposing to construct a new multifamily residential building containing 12 units at the rear of the site fronting the alley.

Add one recommended condition of approval:

The applicant shall obtain a Class 2 Site Plan approval authorizing adaptive reuse of the England-Wade Building, demolition of the rear structure and the construction of a new 12-unit multi-family residential structure at the rear of the England-Wade Building.

And note, "At the time of writing this staff report, no comments have been received from tenants within the historic district or from adjoining property owners." The neighborhood association, CANDO did submit brief comment supporting the project.