Development threatens Wharf historic district status
By John Gever
For the Dominion Post
Six years ago, Morgantown's Wharf District was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The goal was to encourage rehabilitation of the area's old warehouses and homes, thanks to federal tax incentives available to buildings within districts listed in the National Register.
The historic status is now threatened, say local and state historic preservation officials, as one of the district's major warehouse buildings has since been razed and another is now facing demolition.
In February, a company set up by local developer Parry Petroplus bought the former O.J. White warehouse along the rail-trail in the Wharf District for about $460,000. The developer has since told Morgantown city officials that it wants to tear down the building. In its place, another Petroplus company, Platinum Properties, plans to erect a nine-story, brick and glass tower that would feature apartments, offices and retail businesses, according to documents filed with the Morgantown Planning Commission.
Alan Rowe, who manages National Register listings for the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, told the commission that the O.J. White building "is not negotiable as far as its loss is concerned."
In an interview, Rowe said he would begin the process of having the Wharf District de-listed from the National Register if the warehouse is demolished.
Revocation of the district's official historic status would mean that tax credits -- amounting to 20 percent of renovation costs for qualified buildings -- would no longer be available to property owners in the Wharf District.
What's more, if historic status is revoked within the next year, at least one developer who already received tax credits for rehabilitation projects there would have to pay them back to the government.
Officials at Platinum Properties did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Morgantown City Manager Dan Boroff said he was told the company initially wanted to renovate the O.J. White building but then decided it would not be economically feasible.
Platinum submitted an engineer's report that called the building "unsafe for any future use."
Barbara Rasmussen, a member of the Planning Commission, said she had toured the building and questioned that assessment. "That building will survive Armageddon," she declared.
When the Morgantown Wharf and Warehouse Historic District was created in 1998, some 40 "contributing structures" -- buildings more than 50 years old that give the area its historic character -- were included within it. The district's borders extend beyond Walnut Street, but three-quarters of the contributing structures lie within what local residents know as the Wharf District -- the rectangle formed by the Mongahela River, Deckers Creek, University Avenue and Warren Street.
In sheer numbers, most of the historic structures in the Wharf area are the houses lining Warren and Donley streets. But in Rowe's eyes, they are peripheral to the district's historic nature, which he believes is attached primarily to the large red-brick warehouses.
There were six of these in the Wharf when the district was listed on the National Register. One of these, a three-story complex at Clay and Hurley streets, was bulldozed several years ago.
That leaves five of what Rowe called the "key buildings" that make the Wharf historic. "The loss of [another] of those major buildings could indeed push the district over into the 'de-listable' category," he said.
"If I receive word" that the O.J. White building is demolished or substantially altered, he said, "I would initiate (the) process" of having the entire district de-listed from the National Register. He said he would visit the area and decide if the area still appears to be fundamentally an old warehouse district. The final decision on de-listing rests with the National Park Service in Washington.
Rowe said the O.J. White building was especially important due to its location and history.
Visually, he wrote in a letter to the Morgantown Planning Commission, the building serves as the district's southern anchor, "a critical terminal viewpoint."
Moreover, according to Rowe, "Its historic significance funs far deeper than mere architectural aesthetics." Dating from 1913-1914 as the Donley Building and expanded in 1927, the structure remains as one of the oldest and largest cold-storage warehouses and ice cream factories in West Virginia. "Thus the level of significance widens beyond the local level," he told the planning commission.
Said Rasmussen, who is also a historian at WVU and president of the Morgantown Historic Landmarks Commission, "Every time you take down a historic building, it's like kicking a tooth out of a beautiful smile."
Some might chuckle at that, in the context of the Wharf District. Many of the older buildings that make it historic have obviously seen better days, the O.J. White Building among them.
"It's not very pretty right now," Rasmussen conceded.
Unsightly though some of the old buildings may be, however, they're a record of the community's economic and social history. "Some of the ugliest buildings in the world are historic, and are protected," Rasmussen said.
If the Wharf's historic district status is revoked, one developer could be forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS.
Under Internal Revenue Service regulations, developers who take the tax credits have to hold onto the property and maintain its historic character for five years. Otherwise the tax credits are subject to "recapture," meaning the owner must pay some or all of the credit back to the IRS. Revocation of historic district status triggers the recapture provision, the IRS has ruled, for buildings whose historic character stems from sitting within the district. The recapture amount declines by one-fifth each year, so that, for example, if recapture is triggered three years after a credit was claimed, the owner has to repay 40 percent of it.
Glenmark Holdings took advantage of the tax credits when it renovated three buildings at the north end of Clay Street between 1999 and 2001. For two of the buildings, the recapture period will expire this year or next. But the firm's renovations on the Weiss Building on Wharf Street were done in 2001, meaning the tax credits for that job are vulnerable to recapture at least through 2005.
Glenmark chief Mark Nesselroad declined to discuss details of the tax credits. However, based on renovation costs described in city permit documents, Glenmark could have claimed a tax credit of as much as $96,000 for the Weiss building.
Thus, it could cost Nesselroad $20,000 if the O.J. White building is razed and Rowe follows through on his vow to pursue district de-listing. Nesselroad had no comment on that prospect.
As required by city law, Platinum Properties submitted a demolition proposal to the Planning Commission in July. The commission voted to disapprove it, but it was an empty gesture since, according to City Manager Dan Boroff,the city cannot legally deny anyone a demolition permit.
"I wish the city had more authority," he said. "But property owners have rights and we have to respect those."
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