Historic Preservation
To the Editor:
Contrary to the opinion expressed in Tom Hill’s letter (The Record, 12/21/23), I am dismayed by the Fayetteville City Council’s recent decision to permit demolition (or “dismantling”) of the historic 1875 E. J. Knesek Building in our downtown Historic District. In three letters last month to The Record, Pat Johnson, Kathleen McShane Bolton, and Hanna Hoffman each elaborated that the hasty, ill-considered action of the Council, in effect, arrogated unto themselves responsibilities of the City’s Historic Preservation Board, as carefully defined in the Fayetteville Historic Preservation Zoning Ordinance No. 2012-02-08.
But, as I understand it, the much-disputed permit is only for demolition of the existing building. Permission to erect a new building is supposed to be a separate process.
I am writing merely as a citizen, a 22-year resident of Fayetteville, and a long-retired civil engineer (not a lawyer). Some of my engineering experience seems relevant here because I want to discuss proper procedures for design of the new building to replace the Knesek Building. For about eight of my years in the employ of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Engineer Command of U.S. Army Europe HQ in Heidelberg, GE, I served as (civil engineer) project manager, in the architect/ engineering (A/E) design phase, of dozens of projects involving repair, renovation or repurposing of various kinds of buildings or structures built before WWII for use of the German Army, and afterwards leased to the U.S. Army in more than 30 bases across West Germany. From this engineering experience, the most important point I wish to stress here is the fact that initial, interim, and final design reviews are critically important to success in the subsequent construction phase of complex projects such as the rebuilding of the Knesek Building. (The construction phase is typically about ten times as costly as the design phase.) Meaningful, decisive design reviews require participation not only of key technical spokespersons but also representatives of the project’s main stakeholders.
This letter has two essential propositions: First, the principal stakeholder in the redesign and reconstruction of a building to replace the Knesek Building is the Public Interest, in the sense of the Commons (e.g., the Boston Commons). Second, in this matter the proper body to represent Fayetteville’s public interest is our duly-appointed Historic Preservation Board.
Consider the options: Can the proper body be the Fayetteville Community Center Group, a not-for-profit private corporation which owns the existing building and its site? As a private enterprise with its own legitimate interests, it cannot, under the Ordinance of 2012, be considered the legitimate representative of the public interest. Is it the City Council, the members of which, along with the Mayor, are not required nor necessarily expected to have any particular concerns about preserving old buildings? Or, rather, is it the Fayetteville Historic Preservation Board, which was created by the Ordinance of 2012, and whose members are appointed by the City Council for prescribed terms in office only after consideration of their qualifications to act as guardians of the public interest in preservation of historic structures? I say it’s the latter body.
A close reading of the Ordinance of 2012 makes it perfectly clear, in plain English, without legal terms of art, that the Mayor and City Council of that time defined the extensive responsibilities of the Historic Preservation Board purposefully, to make it the authoritative body in deciding the fate of historic structures such as the Knesek Building or its replacement.
If standard engineering practice is to be followed, the A/E design phase of the project to construct a new building to replace the Knesek Building must be completed before any part of the construction phase is begun, and there would be a formal handoff of the approved plans and bill of materials from the design entity to the construction entity. In my opinion, this design approval authority has been vested in the Historic Preservation Board by the Ordinance of 2012.