[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.
– Benjamin Franklin, Postmaster General
Yesterday’s post, expanding upon a powderpuff article by Robin Pogrebin in the New York Times (March 8, 2013) and the subsequent comments section (green Arial), brought to our attention that a business which last year lost $16 billion on revenues of $70 billion needs to retrench, and when retrenchment is in order, closing and selling surplus facilities makes as much sense for the Post Office as it does for the US Army and the Catholic Church, the more so because the facilities can be revived for other more vibrant and urgent downtown economic uses.
340 MAIN STREET, NORWICH, CONN.
This 1905 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was constructed of brick and stone with a portico of four fluted ionic columns at the entry. The building was designed as a monument to symbolize Federal ideas.
Nevertheless, in part because humans are inherently skeptical, in part because we are predominantly visual, in any such case there are people who want to stop change and keep everything just as it is:
Oneofakind from Somers, NY
Whenever you think the news is bad, it only gets worse. The Post Offices could rent out space to coffee houses like Starbucks or set up computer stations for e libraries for public use or find some imaginative way to use the spaces.
That’s the mail we check, not the window envelopes, and we do not use the legacy post offices.
In December, the government said it planned to sell it.
Now the Times adds another journalistic trick, quoting a random person who is naturally apprehensive, as if her ignorance validates her opinion.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to this beautiful, Depression-era architectural jewel,” said Sara Meric, 87, a retired script analyst who has used this post office since 1959. “If, God forbid, this slaughter does go through” –
Slaughter?
The Slaughter Pen at Gettysburg
Could you please dial up the hysteria further? We’re insufficiently panicked yet.
“– some entity should make sure that this building is protected.”
To begin with, the Post Office is a government entity (it differs from others only in that it is required to make ends meet, like private companies and unlike Congress or cabinet departments). Then too, historic buildings can secure historic designations. Then too, there is zoning and all the localized barriers to development or redevelopment. Evidently all that counts as nothing, and some higher authority needs to
In many cases the buildings have not only been community hubs –
Community hubs? When was the last time you said ‘community hub’ and thought Post Office?
– but also remain among the most architecturally distinguished buildings in their towns, legacies of New Deal efforts to put America back to work.
While I confess to liking retro constructions and décor, architectural distinction is in the beholder’s eye.
So as the Postal Service tries to shrink, it is often finding itself in battle with groups trying to prevent what the National Trust for Historic Preservation last year labeled one of the most significant threats to the country’s architectural heritage.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is hardly a dispassionate observer; the Trust exists to expand the number of historic properties, and to improve their physical quality.
14 BRIDGE SQUARE, NORTHFIELD, MINN.
ON MARKET – This 1936 building, constructed during the New Deal, is a cornerstone of the Northfield Downtown Historic District. Though on the market, it remains in operation as a post office.
“Our biggest concern is the way they’re going about it isn’t transparent,” said Chris Morris, a senior field officer for the National Trust and project manager for post office buildings. “A lot of us are very confused about the process.”
To presume a transparency requirement is to assume standing – and it is not self-evident why a company (even better than a private company, a government company) should be obligated to disclose all of its thinking and invite public comment on what are its own internal decisions. Transparency is required only when there is a public interest sufficient to have caused Congress or the courts to grant the public standing to intervene.
Even with legal protections in place, advocates say there is no guarantee that these post offices will remain intact once sold. They say such protections can be ignored or prove insufficient in the absence of vigilant monitoring or explicit guidelines that specify which architectural elements deserve protection.
Yes, advocates say advocates are essential.
Four out of five advocates recommend advocacy
However one resolves the question of the public’s standing, and who might be presumed to speak for the public, post office buildings are structures like any other, and before one tussles over whether the house may be remodeled or torn down, one might ask this more basic question:
3. What do you do with a used Post Office?
A little more than thirty years ago, the company I then worked for became interested in raising equity capital for a series of sports clubs, and through that investment I learned the value of a truism told me by a much older investor: Beware the single-use building.
Beware of them too
A single-use building stands or falls on that use, and if the need for that use of property disappears, the building’s value plummets, even to zero or below. Such is the case with shopping malls (killed by the asteroid known as internet). Even more vulnerable are single-use buildings tied to a discretionary activity, like bowling alleys (which boomed in the Fifties, busted by the Seventies, and are still dying today), and more recently, bank branches, which are being redone in their hundreds.
We’ll keep the food safe
Because buildings are exoskeletal, single-use structures are often designed exclusively for that purpose, either with low ceilings (bowling alleys) and large floor plates or high rooms (post offices, banks, churches, old-fashioned hotels) that make repurposing the main entry space difficult.
Lynn C from New York
I once owned a condo in a historic building (landmark status wasn’t disclosed). Historic homes tend to be poorly insulated and gobble up lots of energy.
Fortunately, if the single-use building has been well constructed and is well located, it can survive even the loss of its original purpose, because its surround – location, permitting, and shell structure – mean it will be economically viable to repurpose it.
PWA Moderne public building
The Santa Monica post office, with its distinctive PWA Moderne [PWA stands for Public Works Administration, and relates specifically to this era of ‘stripped down Classicism’ – Ed.] style, is one of about 200 post offices around the country, dozens of them architecturally distinctive buildings, that the Postal Service has indicated it may choose to sell in coming years because of its financial problems.
Eleven historic post offices are already on the market in places like Yankton, SD; Gulfport, MS; Norwich, CT; and Washington.
But even as postal officials agreed not to eliminate outlets in some towns and cities, they did leave open the option to sell valuable properties and relocate services. “Periodic sales of post offices will be ongoing,” Ms. Brennan said.
1248 FIFTH STREET, SANTA MONICA, CALIF.
This 1938 Art Deco building features classically inspired pilasters capped with stylized Corinthian capitals. Preservationists seek to ensure that the wood-paneled lobby is protected.
Economic natural selection will apply to the post offices, just as it applies to churches – when it comes time to choose which one to close and sell, the one with higher real estate upside is more likely to be disposed of.
The Santa Monica post office’s exterior
The agency acknowledges that in recent years the sale of post office buildings has accelerated, and in 2011 it hired CBRE, a commercial real estate services firm, to handle the transactions.
Far from being net liabilities, vacated post offices should be disposable real estate assets. If the properties are historic, they’ll qualify for historic tax credits, which come as-of-right and are not allocated, and that 20% value boost ought to compensate for a great many murals and window treatments.
A variety of these factors has worked to preserve the post office in Greenwich, Conn., which was sold to the real estate magnate Peter Malkin for more than $15 million in 2011. Mr. Malkin said he had met no resistance to his plan to convert the Classical Revival building, constructed in 1937 and listed on the National Register, into a Restoration Hardware store.
Indulging his nostalgia of place: Peter Malkin
There’s no way the property will generate rent sufficient to provide a sound return on the purchase price;
So Mr. Malkin bought it as an indulgence.
“One of the reasons I became involved in the purchase of the building was to protect it from being changed in any way,” he said.
It would work better if converted into housing: Greenwich Post Office, before it closed
Evidently some of these properties are being bought as urban historical follies, visual indulgences for the city scape.
Last year, a post office in Venice, Calif., that was built in 1939 was sold to the Hollywood producer Joel Silver (“Lethal Weapon,” “The Matrix”), who is converting it into his company headquarters. As part of a protective covenant agreement with Los Angeles, Mr. Silver’s renovation must preserve the historic parts of the building.
“You’ll never guess what I do: I’m a Hollywood producer.”
“No, you’re kidding!”
Like Mr. Malkin, Mr. Silver acted for non-economic reasons, and thus was readily able to satisfy those who wanted the past preserved at someone else’s expense.
Mr. Silver also agreed to restore and preserve a mural inside, “Story of Venice,” by Edward Biberman, at a cost of $100,000.
The story of Venice, being restored
[Continued tomorrow in Part 3.]