Historic Preservation Commission objects to city plans for fire house

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The city's Historic Preservation Commission is objecting to city plans to move or demolish a 102-year-old fire house.

At its meeting Thursday, April 14, commission members voted unanimously to send a letter to the city regarding the brick Fire Station No. 2 at 423 Fifth Ave. NW.

The building has been unused since the 2008 flood.

City project engineer Dave Wallace said the building stands slightly in the right-of-way of an $8.9 million storm sewer reconstruction project on E Avenue NW between Third and 13

^th

streets.

The foundation is adjacent or partially above a trench used to install the storm sewer, so it must be relocated or demolished for worker safety, according to the city.

Otherwise, the city would have to incur the expense of driving sheet piling into the ground to protect the building from the sewer work, Wallace said.

Maura Pilcher, chairwoman of the Historic Preservation Commission, noted that the brick storm sewer itself – known as the Vinton Ditch – has been deemed historic.

Pilcher suggested that rather than remove the fire station, another cultural asset, while destroying the historic sewer system, the city should use funds from mitigating damage to the sewer, as a cultural asset,  to preserve the building where it sits.

Moving it could potentially threaten the building's historic integrity, she said.

The commission had deemed the former fire station the top priority for preservation, rehabilitation and adaptive reuse among a list of proposed mitigation measures to compensate for residential demolitions undertaken with federal funding after the 2008 flood.

“Threatening the historic  fire station while destroying another historic asset – the Vinton Ditch Storm Sewer – is an irresponsible use of public funding and poor stewardship of the community's historic resources,” Pilcher said.

Commission member Matthew Carstens said other historic buildings elsewhere are allowed to stay in place, regardless of whether or not they disrupt traffic flow.

The building is likely eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Commission member Amanda McKnight Grafton pointed out that a major street is being closed for a new building – a reference to the Physicians' Clinic of Iowa medical mall that is requiring the closure of part of Second Avenue SE.

Members requested cost estimates of protecting the building during the sewer work.

They also asked for information on the bricks being removed during the sewer reconstruction.

Dave Carpenter, an engineer with consultant Foth Infrastructure & Environment of Cedar Rapids, said he hopes to find a place to recycle more than 1 million pounds of bricks, rather than dispose of them at the landfill.