A subcommittee for the City’s Task Force on Historic Downtown Preservation and Revitalization took a field trip Wednesday through two prominent downtown renovation projects. The subcommittee, which is investigating ways to entice developers to renovate older buildings by easing fire and building code restrictions without compromising safety, saw first-hand the amount of work involved in bringing a historic building back online.
“You get a look at how much these guys have to deal with,” said City Council vice president and subcommittee chair Suzanne Jenkins. “You can do it all day long on paper, but without actually going out there, you just don’t really know what it’s all about.”
The subcommittee, including members of City Council, the General Counsel’s Office, the Historic Preservation Commission and local private developers, toured 11 E. Forsyth and the old Roosevelt Hotel, both residential projects being developed by Vestcor Companies.