Period of Significance Determines 'Look' of Rehabbed Buildings

Wonder why the brick buildings at the renovated AM&A's Warehouse Lofts were repainted?  Baffled by why the Art Modnerne lobby of the Hotel Lafayette will be retained rather than restored to Louise Bethune's original layout?

Many rehabilitation projects across New York utilize historic tax credits as part of their funding mix.  Applications are directed to the Secretary of the Interior Standards for rehabilitating historic properties and the main aspect is to pinpoint the 'period of significance.'  The period of significance determines what changes happen to the exterior, and oftentimes interior, of the building.

Daniel McEneny of New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) explains.  "The period of significance provides New York State, the National Park Service, and the development team with a framework to determine what aspects of a building contribute to its significance and what elements don't illustrate the building's importance," says McEnemy.  "The period of significance works as a guiding post, but does not always dictate the final results.  Each building and each tax credit consultation process is different."

A building can only qualify for State/National Register and tax credits if it is significant in at least one of three areas: its association with a historic event, a significant person, or for its design/ construction.  A period of significance for a building generally begins with the date of construction, something physical that the public can see or touch, and ends with the last date that something significant happened to or at the building.

This can be events like the end of an important labor strike that took place at a factory, the death of a home's prominent resident, or a significant alteration to a building's program, such as an addition or remodeling.  Most buildings are significant because of their design and the period of significance is often only the year of construction like with The Calumet and the Zink Block at 346 Connecticut Street.

The Hotel Lafayette is listed on the Nation Register in the local context as a French Renaissance Revival designed hotel with significant Art Moderne interiors from the WWII period.  It is also nationally significant because the architect, Louise Bethune, was the first female to be admitted to the American Institute of Architects.  The period of significance begins in 1900 when the foundation was laid in anticipation for the Pan American Exposition and ends during WWII when the lobby and restaurant were remodeled in the Art Moderne style.

Many would assume that Bethune's national significance would trump other aspects of the hotel's design, but the Art Moderne spaces are important interior spaces in the local context and provide a glimpse into how a grand hotel in Buffalo was used during the WWII era.  It would be potentially interesting to recreate Bethune's lobby based on some of the architectural elements and references obscured by the present lobby, however, that type of restoration would obliterate important aspects of the hotel and Buffalo's history.

According to McEneny, "A development team is not responsible for recreating what is no longer there, but in accepting the [tax] credit they are responsible to rehabilitate a building in a way that does not create a false sense of history or harm the existing integrity of its architectural fabric."

Another reason the Art Moderne lobby of the Hotel Lafayette will not be returned to Bethune's design is because of the elevators in the building.  "There was so much changed that trying to go back to the original fabric of 1904 could not be done," explains Jonathan Morris, AIA of Carmina Wood Morris, the architecture firm working on the restoration project.

The period of significance is also the reason why the circa-1886 building at 375-77 Washington Street, part of the AM&A's Warehouse Lofts conversion, was repainted white.  The brick and stone work under the paint has been called "amazing" by architects and others involved in the project.  The building was painted white when the Esenwein & Johnson-designed white terra cotta building next to it opened in 1912 to create a uniform appearance.  Since the period of significance was set at 1915, and an historic photograph taken that year documents the white color, it had to be repainted white. 

The buildings in the AM&A's Warehouse Lofts complex were unified inside and out functionally when the terra cotta building was constructed and remained so until the recent rehabilitation," says Elizabeth Martin, Historic Sites Restoration Coordinator with SHPO.  "The National Park Service reviewer felt that while the brickwork was, indeed, beautiful on the older buildings, the complex was viewed as a whole only when they were painted white; thus the period of significance incorporated the color change and that's why it is white again."

Morris' firm also designed the AM&A's Warehouse Lofts project.  "The owner Signature Development is required to keep the building white for five years, otherwise the tax credits could be pulled," he says.