The Preservation Resource Center turned 50 this past year, and our celebrations have been an amazing opportunity to reflect on the incredible impact the organization has had on the health of New Orleans for five decades. From individual homes and sites to whole neighborhoods, the PRC’s work has ensured that more than 1,000 buildings were saved and restored, that homeowners can age safely in place in their historic homes, and that our incredible architectural and cultural assets will survive into the future, keeping our economy thriving while preserving our unique quality of life.
Despite our decades of tangible successes, our community was rocked this fall with the threat of the elimination of the Louisiana Historic Tax Credit program, which has brought billions of dollars of investment to Louisiana and is a critical tool to enable restoration of historic buildings. To destroy a program that is recognized as one of the best in the nation is completely antithetical. Preservationists and business leaders have presented the data repeatedly: The state gets nearly $9 of economic impact for every $1 it expends as a tax credit towards restoring historic structures, plus incalculable benefits that come to the community when a piece of blight is restored and brought back to use. But even that great economic return fails to help many see past their belief that “old” is undesirable.
At the end of October, more than 1,100 people from across the country came to New Orleans to attend the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s PastForward conference, which is one of the largest annual gatherings of preservationists in the world. The PRC’s staff was integral to the Trust’s execution of the event, and we were honored to have the opportunity to help curate this important gathering. For three days, I witnessed conference-goers exploring the city, their bright purple lanyards visible as I drove down Magazine Street, throughout downtown, and into the Tremé and other neighborhoods. Their excitement and awe at our city’s architectural and cultural treasures were contagious.
I had the great honor of speaking at the conference’s welcome address in St. Louis Cathedral, along with Archbishop Gregory Aymond, Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson, and National Trust CEO Carol Quillen, and I reminded the audience why our way of life in New Orleans is worthy of protection. In a nation where strip malls and big box stores are the norm, and you can be dropped in any parking lot in virtually any place in the country and not know where you are, New Orleans is SO New Orleans. Our city is so identifiable, and special. Living here brings a style of life long-lost in so much of the rest of the country – where independent businesses, community, walkability, and artistry in the built environment are prioritized.
Our architecture and our culture are assets. This is so evident to us at the PRC, and to so many others in New Orleans and statewide, including those working in the tourism, development, film, retail, and other industries. You cannot replicate our authenticity, our city’s patina – it is irreplaceable. This understanding – and having 1,100 people from around the country come to New Orleans in late October and so plainly see it, too – made the fight with lawmakers in Baton Rouge this fall especially vexing.
I am relieved and thrilled to say that we defeated this threat, and the Louisiana Historic Tax Credit was saved in the final days of the special session last month, though the program is slightly diminished with a lowered cap. Despite this victory, the PRC’s goal for the next 50 years is clear: We need to do all we can to educate lawmakers and residents across this culturally rich state, and convince them that our heritage is part our wealth, and investing in its preservation and restoration makes us all richer, in every possible way.
We hope you will join us, in this new year, as the PRC enters the second half of its anniversary celebrations, in our perpetual efforts to protect the state historic tax credits, and to expand our reach and impact so that people see our historical assets as our shared wealth, worthy of protection and restoration. Please support the PRC as we work to keep New Orleans authentic.
