1704 WEST MARKHAM
Several of you wrote me to alert me to the fact that Jeff Monsein, whose name you may recognize from ads for his "Aluminum Company of North Carolina," intends to tear down a contributing property in the Trinity Heights National and Local Historic district - a house that he has owned for some time at 1704 Markham Avenue. Per the agenda of the upcoming Historic Preservation Commission meeting, he intends to tear down the structure so that he can build a new structure in its place.
Here is a picture of the property several years ago: 
And the property today - after a few years of neglect and vacancy. It is still in relatively good shape, though.
One reason why we have local historic districts is to maintain the historic assets of the neighborhood as infill occurs - thus Duke's very nicely done Trinity Heights infill project has raised the property values in Trinity Heights over the past several years. While existing property owners can benefit from other people's (Duke's) substantial investment in the neighborhood, they may also decide to neglect and/or destroy historic structures in the neighborhood because doing so increases their personal gain (which accrued to them through no work/investment on their part. But it also creates a negative effect on the neighborhood.
For those who like things in economic terms, it's externalities - accepting a positive externality as your property value increases due to the investment and work of other property owners in the neighborhood should not be 'paid back' by creating a negative externality for others by neglecting and destroying historic structures.
I hope that the HPC delays the demolition for a year. Unfortunately, this is the most they can do. Because we, as a state, have poor historic protections, the most that our city government can do is a (maximum) one year delay.
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9 comments:
Is this the house next to the Dollar General? All last summer it had that giant street light affixed to the front porch; I couldn't tell if that was to facilitate work on it, or simply keep out trespassers.
How much is it worth? A great location.
Dave
It is the house next to Dollar General. How much it is worth is hard to say, because I don't know what the interior is like. If the house was renovated, it would probably be worth $200K, give or take.
I've always hoped someone would take the hammer to the Dollar General instead. That is a prime location for a great piece of infill development.
GK
We passed that house today and I wondered why it has been vacant for so long. It’s in a great location just across from the “Wall”.
Sequoya
It is a great location. The owner probably thinks it is a great location, too - to put up a faux historic house to sell for more $$$.
GK
On second thought, I don't see what is so great about this house. Would you be in favor of quiet commercial, e.g., house converted into attorney's offices? Or is there something special about this house that I'm not noticing?
The Dollar General is the pits. With a location just across from campus this house would make a great coffeehouse / bar. And it's worth noting if it has to be torn down that there are some cool apt. buildings in this area; I'm particularly fond of the Rollins Apartments (on Lancaster, I think, one house north of Markham).
Well, no, there isn't anything 'great' about it - but the sum total of a historic neighborhood isn't made up of entirely of houses that cross the 'great' threshold. In National Register terms, this is the difference between 'contributing' properties (of which this is one) versus 'pivotal' properties (which should certainly cross the greatness threshold.) If you chip away at all of your contributing properties, you are eventually left without the totality that made it a cool neighborhood to begin with.
I don't care about use, really. I think old houses converted to neighborhood businesses are cool. This is where traditional zoning is too cumbersome; I don't know if this property is zoned residential or not, but I'd much rather see a cool small business in this building than see it torn down for someone's Starter Castle.
GK
"Starter Castle": would that apply to the TP Heights development (sold to Duke employees)?
Or are you thinking of suburban-type infill, such as 1110 W. Knox (I think -- the brick house on the north side of Knox at the corner of Watts or Dollar, where the owner built a carbon copy next door and subdivided the lots. Neighbors were less than thrilled at the high asking price, plus the fact that he initially offered it as a high dollar rental ["executive housing"]).
Oh, I'm being too prejorative. But it frustrates me that small houses like this are, in my opinion, undervalued. People who can afford it have decided that they need at least 2500-3000 sf and all the fixin's. So in many cities that have had more people moving back into the inner-city, tear-downs are rampant. Sometimes, those people become the most ardent 'preservationists' at the tail end, because, now that they are in the neighborhood, they want to "preserve its character" from further tear-downs.
On the other end of the spectrum, producers of affordable housing are convinced that preservation is antithetical to their production goals, so they tear down these smaller, older houses to build suburban-style slab-on-grade boxes with tiny windows and big driveways. It's hard to challenge their methods without being labelled as elitist or, worse, racist.
So these smaller old houses get squeezed - they aren't grand enough to demand the individual attention if they get knocked down. But if you knock down 50 of them, you've lost a historic neighborhood, and all you have is Southern Village inside the city. Where do we draw the line on that?
Classically, we are terrible preventers and hysterical reacters - on every issue. So the first 25 go without much fanfare, some coherent grumblings begin during the next 15, and people demand a change in policy when there are 5-10 left.
GK
by the way, this whole site is fantastic.
among many contributing factors, diversity is often what makes a neighborhood an excellent community. ideally an area would be diverse in opinion, lifestyle, ethnicity, income... and house size.
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