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Last week, the city did for the Engineer’s Bookstore on Marietta Street what it’s done in only 18 other places: throw a cordon around some older buildings and declare them pretty much off-limits to bulldozers.The effort, which only came about thanks to preservationists and concerned residents, had the appearance of a scramble. The nomination of the
Means Street Landmark District came in early August amid howls over a developer’s plan to raze the bookstore building and build a gas station.The fight to save the Engineer’s Bookstore is only one of several recent wrangles —
see the round former Trust Company Bank building on Monroe Drive,
the old Atlanta University’s Gaines Hall,
the Central Atlanta Library in Downtown,
and so on — that spurred preservationists to mobilize and try to fight the wrecking ball. But is there a better way to preserve Atlanta’s notable older buildings — perhaps before the bulldozers arrive — than by fighting demolition after demolition?It’s “brushfire after brushfire instead of having a system,” says Boyd Coons, sitting in the 1856 L.P. Grant mansion in Grant Park, his workplace as head of the Atlanta Preservation Center. He’s spent years wrangling Old Atlanta back from the brink, including his own office building. When APC bought it, parts of it lacked a roof.Atlanta confers some historic status on 18 districts including Grant Park and West End plus 61 individual buildings like the Fox Theatre. The more protection a building has, the more power city officials have to review what can or cannot be done on their exteriors. Sometimes property owners ask for the special status; for Means Street, the city started the process.Outside the districts, there are uncounted property owners who choose to reuse old buildings, like Jamestown Properties did with Ponce City Market. But then there are others, including institutions, that want to bulldoze old buildings for something new. And still others who just neglect buildings, letting them crumble too much to be saved.The will for preservation is weak in Atlanta, says Georgia Trust President and CEO Mark McDonald. Compared to where he used to work in Savannah, he says, relatively few people unite to protect their own neighborhoods or urge tighter city laws. Maybe it’s because so many Atlantans are new here or only stay a while. Or maybe it’s the nature of the city itself.“When it comes to Atlanta people say … ‘I hear that’s a wide open city where you make a lot of money and real estate development is king, therefore that’s why I want to move to Atlanta, it’s a freewheeling town that likes to reinvent itself every 10 years,’” McDonald says.Coons thinks City Hall could avoid some surprises by thinking ahead a little. For example, protecting key buildings in Beltline planning areas — such as the round bank — before the predictable real estate frenzy begins. Other preservationists say it’s time for the city to conduct a full survey of its historic resources to understand where to dedicate resources and attention. It hasn’t done so since the early 1980s.Planning and Community Development Commissioner Tim Keane, a recent Charleston transplant, says Atlanta’s in the same boat with every city in America, inasmuch as most buildings are privately owned. But every city has a different attitude about saving historic structures and laws.“We have some really good tools here to save buildings, no question about it,” he says. “The issue is the community’s interest and private people’s interest in saving these buildings.”Indeed, some neighborhoods like Virginia-Highland are eligible for protection, but
not enough neighbors support it.Among preservationists, some of whom use social media to ping others about potential threats, there’s some optimism. Coons says he thinks new residents moving to Atlanta “are our greatest hope. So many of them come in with creativity and some idea of a sense of place, how valuable that is.”Keane says he and others have been talking about a new city preservation plan. It would be a “community endeavor to look at priorities in Atlanta so that we’re being very thoughtful and energetic about preservation,” he says. The city’s director of the Office of Design, an open position, will manage historic preservation. As for Means Street, the
Atlanta Urban Design Commission took the first step toward cordoning it off and OK’d the proposed landmark status. In the coming months, the proposal will be reviewed by the city Zoning Review Board. The 14 or so buildings in the proposed district tell some of the city’s early commercial and industrial story, said Doug Young, the AUDC executive director, testifying to that panel in favor of the district Aug. 24.Only one person rose in opposition: lawyer Jessica Hill, representing P12 Properties, which looks likely to have to cancel its plans for a gas station on its newly acquired bookstore site. Hill said she was speaking in “soft opposition” and that her client is open to working with the city on keeping the building and repurposing it.