Utah Heritage Foundation

Technical Preservation Services is pleased to announce the launch of our expanded and redesigned website at www.nps.gov/tps. In the new site, you will find the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines; information about the historic preservation tax incentives; all of our
publications, including the Preservation Briefs and Tech Notes; guidance on meeting the Standards in rehabilitation projects; information on the
Historic Surplus Property Program and the Historic Preservation Internship Training program; online training; and much more.  Big-D Construction's rehab of the Fuller Paint Warehouse is one of the featured sites that rotates on the home page.
The new site features expanded information on Sustainability and Historic Preservation, including the recently-published Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation & Illustrated Guidelines on Sustainability for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings. Also included are links to research and studies on energy efficiency and historic buildings and to sustainability resources for home owners, historic districts and communities and Federal agencies.
Case studies highlighting successful tax incentives projects and projects that combined historic rehabilitation and green building practices rotate
on the home page and in several sections of the site. A Site Map has been added, at www.nps.gov/about/site-map.htm, to help users navigate the site.
We will continue to add new information and features, particularly in the Sustainability section. We hope you will explore the new site and visit
often. 
In addition, the fillable PDF version of the Historic Preservation Certification Application, revised 2011, is now available.  Copies of the
forms are attached and are also available on our website at www.nps.gov/tps/tax-incentives/application.htm.  Please distribute them
widely to your tax program contacts.
Applicants will be able to type directly into the forms and save the information. Please note that the narrative boxes on the Part 1, Part 2,
and amendment forms are limited, not expandable. Applicants and consultants who have developed their own versions of the narrative pages beyond the cover sheets may continue to use their versions.

Salt Lake City's McGillis School at 1300 East and 700 South is now a model for sustainable teaching.  As reported by The Salt Lake Tribune over the weekend. completion of the recent addition has resulted in certification for the building as LEED Gold, the first such certification for a school building in the state.  McGillis School was once Salt Lake City School District's Douglas School.  Built in 1915, the historic school was purchased by the McGillis School from the district in 2001 and subsequently renovated.  Utah Heritage Foundation advocated for sale of the building rather than demolition and sale as a vacant parcel of land.  It was the first time in decades that the district sold a building.  For their efforts to save and rehabilitate Douglas School, Utah Heritage Foundation awarded the McGillis School a Heritage Award in 2004.

The most recent addition of 57,000 square feet was completed this year in a style nearly matching the original understated Collegiate Gothic style of the original building.  LEED certification is a result of incorporating sustainable features into the site that reduce its carbon footprint including drought-tolerant landscaping, conservation of existing structures and fabric, incorporation of transportation options such as biking, walking, and mass transit, and recycling materials.

As quoted in the article, sixth grader Luke Chamberlain said that it's important to try to improve the world.  "If you don't repair the world then it will just be worse for the people who live after us, and it won't be a very fun place to live."  Fortunately, this exemplary line of thinking has been part of this project now for over ten years.  Chairman of the US Green Building Council's Utah Chapter, Dave Engel, added, "The daily choices we all make have a lasting impact on the environment as well as the community."

Utah Heritage Foundation commends The Spectrum for its editorial on July 18, 2011 urging that school buildings be more energy efficient.  But why stop there.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation has been pointing out for years that the greenest buildings are often those that are already built. 

In a planning meeting for the re-use of Denver’s Emerson School, consultant Jim Dinola, a principal with Green Building Services in Portland, Oregon noted that the energy efficiency of older schools can be improved by doing some of the simple things homeowners do to make old houses more efficient.  These include insulating the attic, tightening windows and doors to eliminate leaks, and making thermostats operable (so that rooms are not heated to 85 degrees while sitting empty overnight, for example). Other energy savings will require more substantial investment, such as the overhaul of the school’s heating and cooling systems.  These retrofits often compare favorably with the cost of new construction.

Older schools in established neighborhoods like East Elementary in St. George, Utah (photo courtesy Washington County Historical Society) can usually be reached safely by pedestrians, reducing traffic and pollution from vehicles.  A recent Preservation Nation blog gave a way to measure the walkability of schools and their neighborhoods using the Active School Neighborhood Checklist (ASNC).  The checklist was born out of the federal Safe Routes To School program. The goal of SRTS is to make it safer and easier for children to walk and bicycle to school. 

New numbers were announced today on the productivity of investment in different sectors of the economy.  Here’s what was reported:

$1 million of government stimulus or incentive results in

                17 jobs in the green economy

Since 2004, UHF has been raising awareness about the historic and architectural significance of the former Salt Lake City Main Library.  Completed in 1964, the style structure originally designed by Edwards & Daniels Architects (now EDA Associates) was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places because of the work of UHF and the Utah Division of State History Preservation Office.  Due to a grant from FEMA for seismic upgrade, the project went through the Section 106 process during design arriving at a system of steel framing within the public space of the to be museum space to be.  The Leonardo embarked on the $15 million rehabilitation in January 2010 with a goal to open in Summer 2011.  The current project architect is AJC Architects, Salt Lake City.  As another positive step, the project has been designed with excellent environmental considerations, including historic preservation through materials conservation, and will apply for LEED Gold designation.  In the end, it appears that using the braced frame seismic system, recommended as the preferred option over concrete shear walls by preservationists due to its transparency, will also save the city and The Leonardo money as it will be nearly $300,000 cheaper than the original estimate for concrete shear walls.  A fabulous example of meeting both the goals of preservation and engineering safety is an elegant manner.

We recently toured the building to see the progress and wanted to give you a look at the work in progress.

Top left: View of seismic braced framing.

We recently had the good fortune to get a guided tour of the recently rehabilitated Calvin D. Wilson South American Pavilion in Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake City.  This uniquely multi-sided structure to display the equally interesting bird exhibits was designed in 1970 by John N. Clawson.  Severe deterioration and deferred maintenance that reduced overall usability, closed it to public access, and threatened the zoological status of the aviary led them to address the issues.  The building as well as the entire aviary are listed on the Salt Lake City Cultural Register and thus garnered review from the city through the Historic Landmarks Commission.  It has an impressive air handling system to keep the building at optimal temperatures and humidity for the birds as well as keeping the building odor-free for patrons.  We hope you'll agree that the results are breathtaking and extremely enjoyable, and encourage you to visit soon.  The Wilson Pavilion, a work of Utah modernism, is a fabulous example of preservation of the recent past and combination of preservation and sustainability principles as the building has been certified LEED Gold.

We’re excited that Liz Dunn has been selected as one of the keynote speakers at the 2011 Salt Lake Sustainable Building Conference on May 20, 2011.  Dunn is an architect with the Seattle practice Dunn and Hobbes which specializes in urban adaptive use, including historic preservation.  For the last three years, Dunn has also headed up the Preservation Green Lab for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where strategic policies are developed, implemented, and measured for integrating the reuse and retrofitting of older and historic buildings into city and state efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But the Preservation Green Lab is working nationwide on preservation issues.  As an example of their work across the country, recent article appeared in Preservation regarding the use of district energy in West Union, Iowa, where the Preservation Green Lab is measuring the positive impacts on reducing the overall use of energy across the entire town.

The 2011 Salt Lake Sustainable Building Conference will be offering three keynote addresses at this year's event from leaders who tackle issues each in their own way.  Through practical application, advocacy, and inspiration, these addresses offer a balanced and invigorating experience for building professionals, thought leaders and decision makers who see the built environment as one of the keys to Targeting a Sustainable Future on a local, regional & global basis.  The other speakers at this year’s conference will be Ron Jones and Dr. Joseph Cory.

As solar technology improves and solar panels are become more affordable, energy efficiency and preservation proponents are seeking ways to incorporate solar panels on historic buildings. To assist this effort, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has developed information on alternative energy siting and sample guidelines to address new installations. These guidelines, resources from the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions and the North Carolina Solar Center, as well as best practices from municipalities are now available online.

If you are a homeowner, your simplest, most practical, and least time consuming option would be to consult the   Salt Lake City solar panel guidelines (3.06 Mb) .

We could do much better with saving historic windows here in Utah. They are one of the major character-defining features of any historic building and are looked at carefully when you are applying for historic rehabilitation tax credits.  There is certainly a culture of replacing them here, thinking that newer will be better.  Part of it just might be that there is difficultly in locating a contractor that can perform the work or having the knowledge that the windows can in fact be repaired and can have longer life than replacement windows.

This new website gives you information that we've been collecting and promoting for years and has been scattered across many articles and other websites.  Please forward to your friends and neighbors if they are also trying to save their windows.

The page includes links to lots of window resources including how-to guides, repair workshops, and local and regional contractors.
www.savethewindows.org