Commercial Architecture March 2018 - 9

FEATURE

historic buildings

hen it comes to buildings with landmark
status or just general historic character, architects, owners, and developers are faced

with a variety of choices about what's best for the property
and the bottom line. Often there is not a simple solution.
"The decisions behind preservation, restoration, and
adaptive reuse always depend on context and situation. Is
the building landmarked or is it in a landmark district?
Will the market or the neighborhood continue to support
the building's original use, or does its purpose need to
evolve?" asked John Cetra, FAIA, founding principal, CetraRuddy Architecture, New York (cetraruddy.com).
"In cities like New York where there's constant change
and evolution, adaptive reuse has long been, and will continue to be, an important tool. In Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood, we're renovating five buildings
from the former St. Luke's Hospital-several of which are
landmarked-and adapting them into a rental apartment
development called 30 Morningside. As a hospital, they're
no longer practical, but big windows, tall ceilings, and
unique interior layouts mean that the original design now
works very well for a new use as residences," he said.
"Then again, sometimes it works best to combine resto-

ration and adaptive reuse with new construction, so you
can unlock the maximum value from both. For a commercial development we're designing in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, renovating existing structures and connecting them to a new office tower brought an additional
110,000 sq. ft. of rentable space to the project," he added.
"When you're dealing with a historic building, even if
it's not landmarked, our first approach would be, 'What
can we keep here? What can we maintain?' Then step off
from there, and I think in some cases people are forced to
do that because of a landmarks commission or because of
some kind of status of the building, but I think it's, in some
ways, also a practical thing. I mean, some of these buildings, you couldn't build them today, and to tear down a
beautiful façade that's made out of two feet of masonry, in
some cases, makes no sense at all," said Jeffrey Murphy,
FAIA, LEED AP, partner, Murphy, Burnham & Buttrick
(MBB) Architects, New York (mbbarch.com).
In the case of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York
City, MBB took a landmarked neoclassical mansion that
used to be the Trevor Day School and gave it a high-quality
exterior renovation that maintained the existing historic
fabric. The interior was reconceived according to the client's intended use. "In rethinking how our clients are going
to use the building, we are not always quick to automatically preserve a historic interior," he said.
MBB's work at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, was
conserving as opposed to restoring, Murphy explained.
"We basically took what was there, fixed it, cleaned it, repaired it, and brought it back to the way it is, as opposed to
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MARCH 2018

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Architecture March 2018