Downtown Winchester is at a turning point

Downtown Winchester, and Main Street in par­tic­u­lar, may be fac­ing a major archi­tec­tur­al turn­ing point.  Today, our down­town is expe­ri­enc­ing a renais­sance, with new own­ers buy­ing and ren­o­vat­ing exist­ing build­ing stock.  Over the last decade, near­ly 80 per cent of Main Street build­ings between Washington and Lexington Avenue have new own­ers.  This fig­ure includes 18 out of the 20 struc­tures on the High Side of Main.  Nearly sev­en mil­lion dol­lars has been invest­ed in the pur­chase of these build­ings and addi­tion­al mil­lions have been spent repair­ing and repur­pos­ing them.  If this trend con­tin­ues, it could lead to a crit­i­cal mass of com­mer­cial activ­i­ty that brings even more new busi­ness­es and shop­pers downtown. 

On the oth­er hand, we are fac­ing the emi­nent demise of the build­ing at 71 South Main Street and the pos­si­ble demo­li­tion by neglect of oth­ers.  Until this month, Main Street had a near­ly unbro­ken col­lec­tion of build­ings between Washington and Lexington Avenue, with the excep­tion of a gap where the old Bush Brothers Garage stood.  Additional build­ing loss would not only cre­ate more unsight­ly gaps in the down­town façade, but would also endan­ger adjoin­ing build­ings that own­ers have invest­ed mil­lions in reha­bil­i­tat­ing.  Instead of fill­ing up cur­rent­ly emp­ty store­fronts, this could result in exist­ing busi­ness­es clos­ing, thus revers­ing the pos­i­tive trend of the recent past. 

Winchester expe­ri­enced its first build­ing boom after the arrival of the rail­roads in the 1870s and 80s.  The city became an impor­tant dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter for tim­ber, iron and coal, as these raw mate­ri­als brought in from East Kentucky were shipped across the nation.  The rev­enues fueled a major down­town expan­sion that includ­ed new banks, hotels and an array of shops.  Most of the his­toric build­ings on Main Street were put up dur­ing this peri­od, from the late 1800s through the ear­ly 1900s.  The district’s built envi­ron­ment is rec­og­nized for its fine assort­ment of Victorian-era archi­tec­ture, which includes a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of land­mark build­ings.  To quote one of our city plan­ners, “The Downtown Commercial District con­tains one of the more remark­able col­lec­tions of late nine­teenth cen­tu­ry archi­tec­ture in exis­tence in Kentucky.”

By 1982 when the Downtown Commercial District was list­ed on the National Register of Historic Places, Winchester was fol­low­ing a nation­al trend that saw down­town busi­ness­es clos­ing or mov­ing to the town periph­ery.  Facing this decline, the city fought back with a series of projects.

The first of these was the Downtown Improvement Plan of 1976 fol­lowed by the Main Street Revitalization Project of the 1980s.  These efforts focused on remov­ing over­head util­i­ties and intru­sive signs, increas­ing access to park­ing, ren­o­vat­ing build­ing facades through Main Street Kentucky match­ing grants, and hir­ing our own Main Street director.

All this work result­ed in a down­town mov­ing in the right direc­tion.  Many land­mark build­ings have been res­cued.  Leeds Theatre, saved.  Opera House, saved.  McEldowney Building, saved.  Odd Fellows Building, saved.  Massie Building at 1 South Main, saved.  The list goes on and on.  Following their ren­o­va­tion, new busi­ness­es have opened in these build­ings, espe­cial­ly on North Main Street.  Although we still count too many emp­ty store­fronts, a num­ber of ded­i­cat­ed own­ers are work­ing hard to change that.  And there is a 5.5 mil­lion dol­lar project under­way to improve the looks of and acces­si­bil­i­ty to the High Side of Main, the block on the east side of Main Street between Broadway and Lexington Avenue.

With the raz­ing of 71 South Main, the Downtown Commercial District will have lost 10 of its his­toric struc­tures.  Meanwhile, a num­ber of oth­ers are under­go­ing slow destruc­tion from lack of main­te­nance.  The poten­tial loss of these build­ings threat­ens the promis­ing future of our down­town.  There is an urgent need to pre­serve and pro­tect this vital part of Winchester’s his­toric, cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic heritage. 

Two build­ings on Main Street on either side of the Courthouse offer a cau­tion­ary exam­ple.  Built cir­ca 1814, the for­mer McGuire’s Pharmacy at the cor­ner of Main and Cleveland is the old­est com­mer­cial build­ing in the dis­trict.  The old Citizens National Bank at the cor­ner of Court and Main was once called “the hand­somest bank build­ing in Kentucky.”  Both build­ings have had seri­ous struc­tur­al issues.  Try to pic­ture how Main Street would look with a vacant lot at one of these cor­ners.  The loss of either would be an unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ter for down­town Winchester.  Action is need­ed to pre­vent addi­tion­al gaps on Main Street and the rest of the his­toric dis­trict.  I urge the city to con­sid­er two steps I feel are need­ed to pre­vent such a tragedy.

• As soon as pos­si­ble, begin con­duct­ing a struc­tur­al assess­ment for each build­ing in the his­toric dis­trict in order to iden­ti­fy those with seri­ous main­te­nance issues.  This is espe­cial­ly urgent for build­ings on the High Side of Main, which con­tains the rich­est com­mer­cial archi­tec­ture in the down­town dis­trict.  Imagine after spend­ing more than 5 mil­lion dol­lars to enhance the High Side, we were left with new gaps in this block.  It’s sim­ply unthinkable.

• Enact new ordi­nances specif­i­cal­ly designed to pre­vent destruc­tion by neglect.  These are com­mon in cities that put a high pri­or­i­ty on pre­serv­ing irre­place­able his­toric resources.  New rules are need­ed to ensure own­ers do not allow their build­ings to become unsafe, unin­hab­it­able or beyond repair.  After new ordi­nances are approved, the city must ensure they are enforced.  Periodic reg­u­lar inspec­tions will be nec­es­sary to iden­ti­fy and cor­rect prob­lems before they become catastrophic.

Finally, the Winchester Historic Preservation Commission will need to dili­gent­ly enforce com­pli­ance with its rules apply­ing to new con­struc­tion.  These require review and approval of the design of any new build­ings in the Downtown Commercial District to ensure they con­form to the archi­tec­tur­al style of sur­round­ing struc­tures.  Out of char­ac­ter buildings—think of the Unemployment Office on Lexington Avenue—seriously detract from the over­all aes­thet­ics of the district.

To quote from the goals of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, “Preserving archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ry by restor­ing old build­ings pro­vides cul­tur­al, sus­tain­able, and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to build­ing own­ers, the com­mu­ni­ty, and future generations.”

Harry Enoch and oth­ers addressed the City Commission meet­ing on January 16, about this issue. You can read about that in this sto­ry from The Winchester Sun.