Are skyscrapers simply 'machines for making money' or is there value embodied in the creativity and energy it took to produce them? How much do we figure their cultural and historic significance in the ledger?

In the case of the Cleveland Trust Tower, designed by modernist furniture maker and architect Marcel Breuer in 1971, speculation over plans to raze or renovate reached its penultimate moment in October 2006 when current owners Cuyahoga County chose an architectural team that proposed demolition.

A last ditch effort headed by Plain Dealer Art and Architecture critic Steven Litt, members of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects and citizens to save the building had a public airing in March 2007 at CSU's Levin College of Urban Affairs.

Panelists argued that saving the tower is not only important for historical value, it's a prudent business decision as well.

Of the three county commissioners, Peter Lawson Jones is alone in favoring the tower's preservation.

An estimated $20 million cost savings figures prominently in Jones’ decision. Also, not dumping the building in a landfill helps the commissioners reach their goal of achieving a LEED-certified Gold rating for the project.

“A [rejected] proposal from the firm Davis, Brody and Bond suggested that if we preserve the tower and make it part of this complex, we will have done what many have failed to do when they jettison old buildings for new,” Lawson Jones said. “People would want to come to our city to appreciate how we did that.”

A final decision will be made in three to six months. Meanwhile, voters might convince Dimora, who’s up for a new term this election, to make a campaign promise to save the tower, Lawson-Jones suggested.

The 800-pound gorilla in the room is whether the choice of architects seals the fate for the tower, or if their proposal can still be altered by dint of public opinion?

“In our last meeting (Dimora) didn’t take a definitive side one way or the other,” Lawson Jones said. “If you’re serious about saving the tower, I suggest you voice your concerns with facts. And don’t be bashful.”

Moderator Steven Rugare of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative went on to explain the importance of Breuer’s Bauhaus style—with its almost sculptural treatments of concrete and granite.

“Breuer wanted a more expressive quality for high rises” than the bland glass and steel boxes of his contemporaries, he said.

Reusing the tower is an act of sustainable re-development, said Melanie Kintner, interim executive director of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition. “The intent is to extend the life of the building, preserve historic and cultural resources, reduce waste and conserve energy used in making and transporting new materials.”

The local economic impact of adaptive reuse is fairly significant, added KSU Architecture professor Edwin Robinson. “The labor involved in rehabbing the building puts the money through the local economy. If the building is new, most of the money goes out of the country where they make rolled steel.”

“Skyscrapers are big decisions,” Robinson concluded. “Breuer was a man of thoughtful intelligence, and he designed that way.”

Caught in the balance

Which is the more environmentally responsible act—save the 29-story Breuer-designed Cleveland Trust Tower or knock it down and build a state-of-the-art LEED-certified high-rise building?

The answer partially lies in something called embodied energy—initially, it’s the energy to mine, manufacture, transport materials and erect (and eventually demolish) a building. Aside from the cultural and historic value, the Breuer building consists of hundreds of tons of steel, pre-cast concrete and granite – materials that can be recycled to some degree, but still have ‘gigaJoules’ of embodied energy.

On the flip side, a new building starts the cycle all over again—adding its embodied energy plus the existing building's to the environment. Green building advocates counter that new, high-performance technologies are generating vast operational energy savings—also part of the embodied energy equation.

Demolition and new construction is an energy loser—it has fifteen times more embodied energy than the lifetime energy use of the new building, according to Donovan Rypkema, principal of Place Economics and author of The Economics of Historic Preservation.

Still, if we're not saving the Breuer tower, what happens to all of the material? Careful construction waste management can save tons of concrete and granite from the landfill, and will earn the project some LEED points, says Cleveland Green Building Coalition interim director Melanie Kintner.