The World of Planning (and Preservation)

Another school weekend is upon us, and this one falls within the feverish intensity that is mid-term. Classes included Economics of Historic Preservation, in which final papers were due, Building Conservation, and Materials Testing, with the students again traveling by train early this morning to the offices of Building Conservation Associates in New York City.

For our Friday evening session, we traveled downtown to hear about the work of River Street Planning & Development from firm prinicipal John Holehan, who will also be among those teaching Preservation Design Studio this spring. This visit was both an extension of the Economics of Historic Preservation class, and a preparation for the spring studio. John spoke about the firm's creation and evolution, then described its main lines of work, including preparation of local waterfront revitalization plans, comprehensive plans, market and feasibility studies, and grant writing. Completed documents and successful grant applications for numerous funding sources were reviewed, and there was much discussion of the planning process, public involvement, and project management and costs.

There was also preliminary discussion of the spring studio, which will focus on a segment of Troy's Congress Street. This formerly thriving commercial and residential area is situated between a large former public housing site being collaboratively redeveloped by the City of Troy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Troy Housing Authority, Rensselaer County, and private developers, and the 15th Street corridor, which is also in the midst of revitalization. The studio will be organized around the National Trust for Historic Preservation Main Street program's four principles of design, organization, promotion, and economic restructuring, and will involve neighborhood planning and interaction with neighborhood residents, businesses, and project developers. We will also be working with a fourth year School of Architecture studio which will focus on alley improvements.

The Building Conservation program includes two studios, one focused on preparation of historic structure reports, and one focused on planning and main street revitalization. Previous planning studios have taken us to the North Central neighborhood of Troy, the Village of Middleburgh in Schoharie County, and the Village of Waterford in Saratoga County. We will describe these studios in greater detail in future posts. We have been invited to do the Congress Street studio by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's office of Campus and Facilities Planning and are always on the lookout for future studio sites.

For those who may be interested in joining the Building Conservation program because of our reputation for the enjoyment of fine food, dinner was catered in by our favorite and frequent caterer, Linda Canty (Harvest Moon Catering). Featured were a delicious chicken curry, basmati rice, a green salad with grape tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and blueberries (a surprisingly nice addition), and seasonally festive chocolate chip-cranberry oatmeal cookies. As an army marches on its stomach, so does the Building Conservation program (we need to keep up our strength!).