Wednesday, May. 19, 2010

IAB building gains ally

By Paul Hammel, WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

LINCOLN - A national preservation group is lending some star power to the campaign to save a 97-year-old building on the former state fairgrounds. The National Trust for Historic Preservation on Wednesday is expected to name the Industrial Arts Building as one of “America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.”

The trapezoid-shaped exhibition hall with a facade of brick archways faces a July 1 deadline for redevelopment plans, or it will be torn down to make way for a public-private research park linked to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The structure, which hosted fair displays and the construction of a plane flown by Charles Lindbergh, has been closed to the public since 2004 because of holes in its roof and general disrepair.

One proponent of saving the structure said its inclusion on the National Trust list could increase the odds that the building will be saved. Of the more than 200 endangered buildings placed on the list since 1988, only seven have been razed, said J.L. Schmidt, executive director of Heritage Nebraska, a statewide group that promotes preservation. “From a historic preservation standpoint, this building is important, and now that importance has been recognized nationally,” Schmidt said. “This takes the game up to a whole new level.”

However, UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman said through a spokeswoman that the building's inclusion on the list was not “a game changer.” Kelly Bartling, the spokeswoman, said the university could not comment on whether it had received any proposals to redevelop the Industrial Arts Building.

The 93,500-square-foot building was designed by Omaha architect Burd F. Miller, who designed many of the homes in Omaha's Gold Coast neighborhood. During the State Fair, the building was home to the “butter cow” display and to exhibits of new technology, such as the first refrigerated railcar of the Burlington Northern line. The university took ownership of the old fairgrounds on Jan. 1. Officials concluded that the building was incompatible for the planned Innovation Campus and that leaving it standing could harm other development plans on the 251-acre site.

Heritage Nebraska launched a campaign to save the Industrial Arts Building, and that prompted Perlman and the NU Board of Regents to seek bids from private developers. Schmidt believes that one or more bids will be submitted by the July 1 deadline, but an architect who is an adviser to Heritage Nebraska said the university's July 1 deadline was “insulting.” “They want an unorganized group of preservationists to come up with a plan for redevelopment within a couple of months? That's totally unfair,” said Lincoln architect Jerry Berggren. “What's the rush?” A 2007 study conducted for the State Fair estimated that it would cost $375,000 to tear down the building and between $2.7 million and $6.1 million to stabilize it for exhibition use. Perlman, however, said recently that it could cost $25 million to $30 million to totally redevelop the structure.

Contact the writer: 402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com

Back to listing >>