Georgia Tech’s bid to transform a stately three-story building dating to the 1920s into a high-tech economic development hub isn’t playing out like your typical developer-vs.-preservationist battle.
Because the Crum & Forster Building is protected by Atlanta’s preservation laws, school officials have come up with a plan that would preserve the stately facade but demolish the other two-thirds of the building to clear the way for the expansion. But the unusual way the school is pursuing its plans, which involves a City Council proposal to “de-landmark” the area around the building, could have broader consequences.
Perhaps that’s why neighborhood groups in Midtown and Inman Park, itself covered partly by a historic district, have warned the move could create a loophole capable of undermining the city’s strong 23-year-old preservation laws. Boyd Coons of the Atlanta Preservation Center said the future of those legal protections hang in the balance.
“If you are strong enough to get around the law, using your influence, then is anyone safe?” he said.
Georgia Tech officials, meanwhile, say they had little choice but to overhaul the building because it’s too costly to maintain in its current state. School spokeswoman Lisa Grovenstein said the plans for the new building will provide a jolt to Midtown’s economy and attract new technology companies to move nearby.
How this plays out could hold clues to how developers and preservationists reach compromises with other properties across metro Atlanta.
The fight centers on a Spring Street structure with sweeping arches, intricate masonry and a design that can best be defined as a mix between English architecture and Italian Renaissance style.
It was built by a New York firm in 1926 as the home of a major insurance office when Midtown was a mostly residential community, and it was used as makeshift office space by different firms until the Georgia Tech Foundation bought the building in 2007 for a possible expansion.
The school’s foundation soon sought unsuccessfully to demolish the building, and preservation groups countered by persuading city lawmakers to declare the property a landmark in 2009, the highest level of protection Atlanta’s preservation laws afford. The foundation challenged the decision in court, and that case is still pending.
But as the school drew up a proposal to build a “high-performance computing center” on the property, the fight went in a different direction. School officials came up with a plan to keep the building’s street-front facade but demolish the back two-thirds of the building to clear the way for the new construction. And in April, City Councilman Kwanza Hall, whose district includes Midtown, proposed to “de-designate” the area around the building as a city landmark. While the proposal wouldn’t affect the status of the building itself, critics say the unprecedented move could threaten the building’s future.
Hall was traveling and could not be reached for comment, but he said in his ordinance that he’s aiming to strike a compromise to “balance economic development through new construction projects while maintaining the continued exception integrity” of the building. The legislation has yet to reach a vote.
Delicate balance
Georgia Tech officials say their plan will keep the “character-defining historic facade” while also creating new economic development opportunities for the city and region. The building, which sits near a powerful fiber-optics line and across the street from the Technology Square development, is perfectly positioned at “the crossroads of Atlanta’s past and the city’s future innovation,” Grovenstein said.
“Georgia Tech’s ultimate goal is to propose a meaningful and attractive solution for the property that supports the education and research mission of the institute while maintaining our economic development momentum in Atlanta and the state,” she said.
But that doesn’t go far enough for some of the preservationists.
Erin Kane of the Inman Park Neighborhood Association said the redevelopment plan and Hall’s proposal threaten “all of Atlanta’s historic neighborhoods and properties.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation warned that Hall’s proposal could “establish a dangerous precedent, providing a mechanism for circumventing the legal basis by which Atlanta’s preservation activity is governed.”
And the Midtown Neighbors Association said Georgia Tech’s architecture program was inspired partly by the building’s architect, Edward Ivey.
“By its very presence, the Crum & Forster Building reminds us of a time in our city’s history when architectural design, human scale and relationship to the street were important to promoting institutional excellence,” the group states in a letter.
Ordinance set a trend
Atlanta and its suburbs have a long and checkered history of safeguarding some of its most notable buildings. Many were flattened by bulldozers as the city boomed after World War II. But a resurgent preservationist movement, fueled in part by the effort to save the Fox Theatre from the wrecking ball in the 1970s, has gained momentum.
Since then, buildings across metro Atlanta have been spared through compromises between preservationists and savvy developers, who built projects such as “The Stacks,” a decaying mill that was transformed into new loft space. Vocal groups have sprouted up in suburbs, including the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, which formed in 1995 to help save farmhouses destined for certain development.
The successes were linked to Atlanta’s Historic Preservation Ordinance, adopted in 1989, which is regarded as among the strongest codes in the nation. It established new protections for historic buildings and charged the Urban Design Commission with reviewing and regulating key changes to the properties.
But the ordinance also built in safeguards for owners to allow them to strike compromises so their property isn’t forever frozen in amber. The code’s ability to balance the desires of both preservationists and developers gave birth to similar partnerships throughout the region.
Coons, for his part, worries that Hall’s proposal could erase some of the hard-fought gains achieved by preservationists by exposing a weakness in the city code.
On a recent visit to the property, he gushed about the building’s complex brickwork and striking front entrance.
“That’s what we want to keep. Look down the street, what do you see that’s distinguished? You need something like this to refresh the street, to give it a sense of place,” Coons said. “That’s part of what makes a city livable, and it gives a city a sense of place as well as a sense of history.”
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