Posted Aug 15, 2018, 5:08 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 2,466
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.RE
Can someone post the article here?
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Here you go:
Quote:
Maybe the third time is the charm for the future of the building that was once part of Arizona’s first historic home preservation effort.
Tempe City Council has taken the first step to finalize a development agreement that will require a developer to restore the Hayden house, which was once the home of Monti’s La Casa Vieja restaurant, to the condition it was in 1924. The house was built in 1873.
The council’s second public hearing and final vote on the project is scheduled for Aug. 30.
If it's approved, and once the historic preservation is complete and the structure is again occupiable, the developer will build a 285,000-square-foot Class A office complex to the west of the historic home, and either a multifamily residential building or hotel to the south of the home on the parcel along Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway...
Hensel-Phelps is revisiting the project and has offered to sell the historic portion of the property back to the city for $10 once the renovation is complete. The property totals 2.5 acres.
“The historic portion must be restored before anything else can be done on the site,” said John Southard, Tempe’s historic preservation officer. “It must be 100 percent in good shape before they can start on the other buildings, and there is a provision in the agreement that if they damage [the historic Hayden house] they do not get to move forward with the project.”
The newly amended development agreement calls for a building with a “tighter footprint” than the one originally proposed, Baxter said, but the new buildings will be pushed farther from the historic home, giving it an extra layer of protection.
The agreement also provides an 8-year government property lease with an abatement of the government property lease excise tax, or GPLET. GPLETs involve city governments owning land but leasing or allowing private developments on those parcels. They result in the developers and businesses on those lands paying lower property taxes than if they owned the land.
Southard said the house was the first historic home restoration in the state when the Hayden sisters, daughters of Charles Hayden, the founder of Tempe, hired Robert Evans to restore the original adobe in 1924.
Now, crews are working to restore it to the same condition as 1924. So far, work has included creating adobe bricks made from a nearly identical mixture to the original, which Southard said is ideal in historic preservation. The bricks are being shaped and baked in the summer heat inside the shell of the restaurant, which has been gutted and the walls have been stripped to reveal the adobe underneath.
Some of the struggles have been similar to what might have been endured nearly a century ago as well. When a recent storm came through, some of the bricks that had been drying outside were destroyed.
Reggie Mackay, an expert on adobe buildings, has been working on the restoration for a few weeks, Southard said. Once the development agreement is finalized, Hensel-Phelps will have until June 30, 2020 to complete the restoration.
“This is exciting because it will be the first time the city has any ownership of this building, the first time the city will have any say in how it is being used,” Baxter said.
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