Is the Marcel Breuer-designed Cleveland Trust Tower on the National Register of Historic Places?

Yes, the Breuer is listed on the National Register, says Barb Powers, Keeper of the National Register for Ohio, because it was an addition to the Rotunda building and existed when the Cleveland Trust Company was listed in 1973. Much more would be written about the significance of the Breuer building if the application was being submitted today, she adds, but its listing means it could qualify for historic tax credits if it were income producing.

Could the county donate or sell the building to a developer who could then lease it back in order to get historic tax credits to help the developer pay for the project?

Apparently, no language at the federal level specifically permits this, says Cleveland Planning Commission staffer Michael Bosak. Bosak’s source is Colleen Gallagher at the IRS, who said the "structures" that tax attorneys come up with may very well be challenged in audits of tax returns for those who have come up with creative ways to get the credits. Unless a nonprofit has secured an IRS ruling that OKs their credits structure, they may be taken to court to justify what they have done, once the nonprofit starts filing tax returns.

That said, we found a case study of the process of historic rehabilitation for the Hotel Monaco, which was the former General Post Office Building in Washington, D.C. (the city's first marble building and first lit by gas).

GSA still owns it and the Kimpton Group of San Francisco operates the hotel under a 60-year lease. Here's the key to making it legal:

In the late 1990s, through a provision in Section 111 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, GSA sought to “outlease” the building to private developers.

GSA had little experience with this process and the path to finding the right tenant was long and arduous. GSA had many partners, however, to help it through this exercise, including the District of Columbia Office of Historic Preservation, which sought for years to protect this important resource. The National Park Service was involved in part because it manages the National Historic Landmarks program. The community, including local businesses, was also invited to comment.

Historic tax credits were a very important part of Kimpton’s overall funding package, allowing them to undertake a higher level of preservation work than might otherwise be possible—something this exemplary building truly deserved.

"The expenditure of Federal funds came as part of the leasing package in which GSA agreed to pay for the work primarily on the exterior of the building, including restoring the masonry, repairing the original windows, and making the building accessible. These expenditures will be recouped through a profit-sharing arrangement with the lessee."

The question then is if the government agency leases all or part of the building, is it still income-producing (and thus eligible for the tax credits)?

If the building stays put, that would make it easier to hang a plaque heralding its former owner, Dick Jacobs, right?

That covenant is written in the deed. Other information from the deed include the county appraisal. In 2005, when Jacobs sold the Breuer, the Rotunda, the 1010 Euclid building, the Huron & Prospect building, Barn Court and a parking garage to the county for a reported $22 million, the county valued the Breuer at $259,300 and the land it sat on at $1,140,700. Incidentally, the deed doesn’t show the actual purchase price because the County Auditor isn’t required to show the sales figures on tax exempt transactions.

A listing on the National Register sounds promising if you want to save the Breuer, right?

Actually, a National Register listing doesn’t affect rights of property owner, Powers says, “it doesn’t affect the property from being demolished.” One interesting point Powers makes is if a project needs a Federal license or utilizes federal funding as part of planning and review, the federal agency has to take into consideration any National Register listing and do a Section 106 review. This isn’t to say that Section 106 review can forestall demolition any more than National Register—as evidenced in the National Register-nominated buildings in the path of the Innerbelt Project. They can be taken, demolished, and have a plaque made to memorialize them.

So, if the county receives funding from state/federal sources, how do they manage to separate out their capital budget from their general operating funds so that it avoids Section 106 review?

Don’t know the answer to this one, actually…

What is Brutalism?

Architect and urban planner Le Corbusier introduced the concept with an apartment complex built for blue-collar workers in Marseilles, France. Corbu believed all life’s necessities could be located in your living space so he included shops, restaurants, and recreation areas (including some on the roof). Brutalist architecture “abandoned the concept of concrete as a precisely surfaced machine-age material and presented it in its rough state, as it came from the molds,” according to the book, History of Modern Art. “Possibly related to the French word brut (uncut, rough, raw), the term has taken on many forms, but involves fundamentally the idea of ‘truth to materials.’” The “brutalists” saw their buildings, like the Breuer Tower, as almost giant sculptural forms, but also following the Bauhaus imperative that form follows function and that interior space should be flexible to the needs of the tenant.

What is the embodied energy in the Breuer building?

Embodied energy is all of the energy used to create the building in the first place—the mining of raw materials, transporting the raw materials to a manufacturing site, manufacturing the products, transporting the products to the building site, and finally all the energy used to construct the building.

Mike Jackson of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency who has been writing and speaking on the subject and is the author of "Embodied Energy and Historic Preservation: A Needed Reassessment" has converted the BTUs to equivalent gallons of gasoline and found that the Breuer has an embodied energy of 10-15 gallons of gas per square foot. (At 250,000 square feet, that means something like 3.75 million gallons of gas, which in dollars comes to about $11 million just in energy cost is embodied in the Breuer tower). “Only a small fraction of that embodied energy is recoverable when the building is demolished, mostly in the metals,” he says. “So, demolition will result in a huge amount of waste, and any new building to replace this building will require another input of non-renewable energy resources to construct.” Read the full write up here.

How are buildings from Bauhaus masters Mies Van Der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer faring around the rest of the United States?

The Federal government, in particular the Government Services Administration, which oversees all federal buildings, has a historic preservation effort for modern buildings. “With over 550 Modern-era buildings in the GSA inventory, it is important that reinvestment decisions take into account relative architectural merit and potential National Register status,” reads the GSA’s guiding document on the subject, “Growth, Efficiency and Modernism."

“Understanding the quantity and quality of these resources, their relationship to the communities in which they are situated, and their potential cultural significance will enable GSA to consider these values when establishing priorities for reinvestment and retention.”

GSA has completed numerous rehabilitations on Modern buildings: “While many of the completed and proposed projects involved building infrastructure and systems such as HVAC renovations and asbestos removal, other elements, such as lobby, elevator, and restroom modernizations and office window enlargements, were directed at improving the experiences of visitors and tenants.”

The GSA is currently working on National Register listings for three buildings designed by Breuer, including the Federal Courthouse in Columbia SC (’78), the Humphrey Health and Human Services building in Washington, DC (’74), and one of his most famous, the HUD headquarters also in D.C. (’65).

Are there tools that preservationists can use to save the Breuer?

Two of the most important legal protections for historic properties are local landmark designations and the National Register of Historic Places.

Local landmark designation offers local governments the most strength when it comes to protection, says Cleveland Restoration Society staffer Sarah Beimers. If it’s a large federal project, then the National Register is more important.

Cleveland’s ordinance would still allow a Humphrey Mansion or a Hulett ore unloader to be dismantled, she says. Other cities with historic properties are moving ahead with strengthening their ordinances. “In Shaker Heights, the ordinance allows for economic feasibility and rehabilitation studies when it comes to landmark buildings,” says Beimers, who is also a member of Shaker Heights Landmark Commission.

Some cities are leveraging their local ordinance by having them certified by the state and National Park Service, creating what is known as a Certified Local Government (CLG). As a CLG, cities can tap into funds from the State Historic Preservation Office for surveys to create local historic districts, for public education, or rewriting its landmarks ordinance, Beimers says. Currently, Cleveland, Shaker Heights and Parma are the only CLGs in Northeast Ohio. Parma used CLG funds in the process of adaptively reusing the Henninger House.