Vitale force

Preservation Lansing kicks off 2015 awards under new president

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After restoring a dilapidated 1898 house to its original glory, Joe Vitale knows all about to-do lists.

He´s got a big one as the new president of Preservation Lansing, a grassroots group of enthusiasts and experts that gives awards to historic preservation projects large and small each year. (This year’s nomination form is on this page.)

Vitale, 36, took over in July from the 4-year-old group´s founding president, Gretchen Cochran, who married and moved to northern Michigan over the summer.

A push for more and younger members, a tech-savvy marketing campaign and a plan to designate more historic districts in Lansing top the agenda for Vitale, a savvy real-estate dealer who isn´t afraid to sell historic preservation as a development tool.

Lansing historic preservation stalwart Dale Schrader met with Vitale and a few other Preservation Lansing members Monday to talk about strategy — and to ogle the 1930 filling station at 127 W. Grand River Ave., restored to its former glory in 2011 by Schrader.

The group gathered under the blue Pewabic Pottery plaque, last year´s Preservation Lansing award for a commercial project under $1 million.

"Joe brings a lot of energy, he´s historic minded and he puts his money where his mouth is," Schrader said. "He could live anywhere and he chose to live in a historic home in downtown Lansing."

Six years ago, MSU alumnus Vitale bought a tax foreclosure property at 213 S. Bingham St. in Lansing´s historic Cherry Hill neighborhood. The 1898, two-story farmhouse-style structure passed through three generations of the same family.

"You couldn´t build it today the way it was built then," Vitale said. Vitale had to strip off three layers of carpet and flooring to expose the original poplar hardwood floors.

"Poplar was an inexpensive wood in 1898 but today you can´t duplicate it," Vitale said.

The house was in bad shape, but the wood trim was still there, along with a show-stopping curved-banister staircase similar to the one in Lansing´s historic Turner-Dodge house.

"The idea that to restore it, you´re putting more money into it than it´s worth is not true," Vitale said. "You´re not getting the same quality."

"He´s living this stuff," said Ingham County Treasurer Eric Schertzing, who also chairs the Ingham County Land Bank. "We need more Joes."

Schertzing set up the transfer of leadership at Preservation Lansing a year ago when he introduced Vitale to Cochran.

"Joe brings a lot of energy and marketoriented expertise," Schertzing said. "The community needs somebody to remind us of the value of our historic properties."

Schertzing also hopes Vitale can help him with the difficult job of keeping tax foreclosure homes in historic trim. Vitale can´t buy them all and fix them up, but each year, a handful of tax foreclosure homes taken over by the Ingham County Land Bank are sold with historic covenants that require the new owners to keep the exterior in original condition.

The covenants make the houses harder to sell, but historic restoration is good for neighborhoods, Schertzing said. He hopes Vitale´s real estate connections and marketing savvy will help put some of those homes in loving hands.

"These opportunities are available in more ways, with more willing partners [in Lansing], than they are in a lot of other communities," Schertzing said.

Vitale was intrigued by the guerrilla nature of Preservation Lansing.

"I love it that they educate on preservation and its impact, and they lobby to keep structures that should be saved — that´s really exciting," Vitale said.

As the group chatted under the service station overhang, Schrader told them about his plan to get the station listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As if on cue, Preservation Lansing member Ted O´Dell tooled up in a 1930 Ford Model A that matched the station´s vintage.

Treasurer Cassandra Nelson told the group she´s working on a proposal to get historic designation for a large swath of Old Town along Grand River, from Zoobie´s Bar on the east side to the filling station on the west.

Schrader said there are so many old houses in the neighborhood that the district should extend to Oakland Street on the south and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the west.

"That way, we wouldn´t see things like this pole barn being built over here," Schrader said, referring to a corrugated metal structure put up by Niowave Corp. in the nearby Walnut Neighborhood nearby in the midst of a shaded block of brick homes.

Lansing has a sad history of steamrollering landmarks and neighborhoods alike, from the 1906 Ransom E. Olds mansion, razed in 1971 for I-496, to the 1861 City Club of Lansing, razed in 2009 to make room for a skyscraper that was never built.

Compared with other Michigan cities like Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo and even small cities like Marshall and Albion, Lansing has a modest list of local historic districts. The city has eight buildings and two districts locally designated as historic. One district, Ottawa-Walnut, consists of two houses; the other, Cherry Hill, has about 90 properties. By comparison, Kalamazoo has five historic districts with 2,075 properties; Grand Rapids has six districts with about 2,500 properties, and East Lansing has six districts covering about 800 properties. Traverse City, about one-eighth Lansing’s size, has three districts covering about 350 properties.

Whether more historic districts are created in Lansing, Vitale wants Preservation Lansing to beat the drums for preservation any way it can, and the annual awards ceremony is the group´s most high-profile event.

Nominations for 2015 awards are due Sept. 1. The categories are large and small residential and large and small commercial. (The cutoff between "large" and "small" is $1 million.) Buildings must be at least 50 years old and only the exterior is judged.

The awards ceremony will be in late October at La Fille Gallery on Michigan Avenue in downtown Lansing.


Preservation Lansing seeks nominations

To nominate a home or business, and for more information on getting a preservation job underway, go to Preservation Lansing´s Facebook page or contact Vitale at Joe@cb-hb.com or (517) 712-4500. You can also mail the form on this page.


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