Just over four months ago, I wrote in these pages about the impending demolition of the Horton House. The Civil War-era brick Italianate, which stood at 399 Franklin Street, was coming down to make way for an old but growing business, Keller Bros. & Miller, Inc. Printing. Ralph Salerno’s print shop had been doing business out of the building next door for 85 years, and he was finally ready to expand his operations and breathe a little bit. Many observers considered the demolition an attack on Buffalo’s historic landscape. For Salerno, though, it was a simple, pragmatic business decision. He didn’t have enough money to preserve and adaptively reuse the Horton House. And so it came down in July, and in its place rises a brick building that will sport a faux-1880s historic façade that will, quite honestly, not compare with a fully restored Horton House. Ask Lisa Sheppard what could’ve been done differently to dave the building, and she’ll get straight to the point: “It usually works if you throw money at them.”

Sheppard, a senior historic preservation planner with the city of Jacksonville, Florida, said pretty much the same thing five years ago. That was when her city was looking for ways to bring underutilized and abandoned buildings in the city’s core back online. Councilman Jim Overton had created the Historic Preservation and Downtown Revitalization Task Force to change the perception of downtown from that of a dirty, blighted, unsafe place to a thriving commercial area with a distinctive character, one that allowed citizens to experience its history firsthand. Out of the task force came Jacksonville’s Historic Preservation & Revitalization Trust Fund (the trust fund, from here on), which was committed to the restoration and rehabilitation of historic buildings. Overton secured one-time funding of $7 million for the trust fund, and its founding legislation allowed the City Council to appropriate virtually any revenue it wished to for the fund—parking ticket revenues, city property sales, etc.

Since 2002, the trust fund has provided grants to nine different projects in downtown Jacksonville, whose total dollar value stands at nearly $100 million. “It’s definitely gotten the attention of businesspeople,” says Sheppard. “It’s a source of funding, and they’re always interested in that. There have been some people who’ve acquired buildings, or looked at acquiring buildings, with the specific understanding that this funding was available to them.” The money doesn’t come without strings attached, though. Before a building is eligible for trust fund money, it must go through the local historical designation process. It’s a way for the city to be sure the building keeps its historical integrity, a way to protect its investment. Also, since the funds are distributed as grants, they’re only given after the work is completed and approved by folks, like Sheppard, whose job is historical preservation.

Successful projects have ranged from converting the old Roosevelt Hotel into upscale condos to renovating the Art Deco-style Western Union Telegraph Building for reuse as the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art (now the Museum of Contemporary Art). Though the fund dried up in 2003, it was replenished again last year when the city sold one of its old libraries to a developer and devoted $2.25 million from that sale back into the trust fund. Now the City Council has announced its most recent grant of $1 million to help a developer with the exterior rehab of three historic buildings. The total project cost is nearly $30 million. It’s all about small incentives to local companies in Jacksonville.

One interesting way that Sheppard’s office made such renovations even more affordable, and thus more lucrative to business owners, was to tailor the application so it’s similar to other incentives. In their case, they mirrored the trust fund application after the applications for a local property tax exemption for investing in historic buildings and the federal historic preservation tax incentives. “We mirrored it as much as we could, so if you were taking advantage of one incentive, there would be no reason not take advantage of the other,” Sheppard says. “It’s a more-bang-for-your-buck kind of thing.” All three applications are almost identical as far as “the meat and potatoes,” which makes it easy for them to get a break on their taxes, tax credits and money from the city. “So there’s really no reason for not wanting to do a project at that point,” Sheppard concedes.

If, in your travels, you’ve encountered other good ideas for Buffalo, we’d like to hear about ’em. Call us at 881-6604 or send email to peter@artvoice.com. We appreciate it, and we’re sure the city will someday, too.