Have you noticed there are more construction cranes over Seattle's skyline than ever before? We are not alone. The sights and sounds of demolition and new construction have become a permanent fixture on the American landscape. In 2002, Adrian Scott Fine and Jim Lindberg wrote in Protecting America's Historic Neighborhoods: Taming the Teardown Trend (National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, DC), "A disturbing pattern of demolitions is approaching epidemic proportions in historic neighborhoods across America." It has only grown worse in the past four years.

The demolition of an existing house to build a vastly larger one on the same site, or the tear down of a row of older, smaller buildings to construct a new condominium complex, often results in what we call in the preservation business "insensitive infill construction." This is a historic preservation issue, but it is also a design issue, and is the most frequent reason for calls for help to Historic Seattle staff. Quaint storefront buildings, vernacular bungalows, and even 1960s ranch style houses are being removed in a process sometimes known as "bash and build."

The scraping away of these older buildings can be blamed on soaring real estate prices and the supersizing of the American home. According to Jeff Byles, author of Rubble (Harmony Books, 2005), the average new house contains 2,305 square feet which is more than 53 percent larger than it was in 1970 despite the shrinking of the size of the average American family. This situation creates massive profit margins for speculative owners and developers, and presents a double whammy for preservationists whose efforts have been under-funded and under-staffed since the beginning of the movement in the 1950s.

A structure is almost always automatically regarded as a tear down by owners and developers if the land beneath it is appraised as more valuable than the building. Formerly quiet neighborhoods across America are now gripped in combat as neighbors battle developers. Some appraisers are more sensitive than others and realize that a famous dead architect, or other historic preservation issue, is part of the valuation consideration. But despite the educational efforts of the nationwide Appraisal Institute, many consulting and government appraisers remain clueless as to the importance of a landmark designation or a designation eligibility, and from their perspective only see an eyesore that has suffered from lack of maintenance.

Demolition companies follow The Rule of Three: wrecking a structure will be profitable if new construction on the site will deliver three times what the developer paid for it. Many livable homes and useful commercial buildings are demolished because they stand in desirable neighborhoods where there is no vacant land left to purchase. An owner-developer can raze the serviceable but older and smaller buildings and then indulge in new construction that caters to luxury living tastes.

In 2005, more than 360,000 homes were razed across the nation with another four million projected for demolition in the next decade. Is Seattle squandering the heritage of its built environment? Will the inflated land values last? Will all those construction cranes ever go away? Do we want them to go away? Historic Seattle does not have the answer to these questions, but we do know that not everyone in this town wants to tear buildings down and throw away our heritage. Both our members and interested parties reading our website take an active interest in demolition threats in each neighborhood and call our office regularly to see what can be done.

Unfortunately, many well-intentioned would-be preservationists wait until it is too late. When the Master Use Permit sign has already been posted at a property, it is very difficult to begin an action to save the building. Researching the property with enough scholarship to make the findings legally defensible, writing the findings and presenting them to the City's Landmarks Preservation Board staff, waiting for Board review to determine landmark eligibility, and then the landmark designation, all take months of effort by dedicated preservation activists who have time to visit archival repositories during business hours. Included in this mix of effort must be generating neighborhood support to write letters to the Board, schmoozing a reluctant or opposing property owner, and collecting historic photos of the property.

Historic Seattle's remedy to this bash and build situation is to offer empowering information to neighborhood residents so they can act as their own preservation activists before the Master Use Permit sign appears at an older building that has seen better days. If you and your neighbors know of an 1890s farmhouse now surrounded by a 1920s housing tract, or a 1940s storefront that once housed a locally noted person or enterprise, now is the time to begin the research and rally neighborhood support to save it. If you wait until you see the permit sign while walking your dog, it's probably already too late.

Our next empowering information opportunities will take place at our bi-annual Landmarks Nomination Workshops offered on April 22 and October 14 at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. The workshops will feature local experts whose presentations will cover such topics as researching and writing local landmark designations, Washington Register and National Register listings, funding for rehabilitating historic sites, and building neighborhood support. Please consider attending yourself, or sending someone from your neighborhood to represent your preservation interest group. The admission fee is $25 ($20 for Historic Seattle members), you will take home an extensive packet of resource materials, and you can enroll at Historic Seattle's website: www.historicseattle.org.

In 2003, architectural research conducted by Brian Libby for Metropolis magazine ("A Glass of Green," Vol. 22, No. 10) revealed that the average American building now lasts only thirty-five years. As soon as a building is completed, its destruction begins with a scuff here, a dent there, a facade remodel, and then the dump trucks are at the curb. You can't make Seattle's construction cranes go away, but you can help control what remains after they are gone. We hope to see you at our workshop in April.

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