Wichita board endorses historic preservation status for Century II, former library
The Wichita Historic Preservation Board on Monday nominated the Century II Performing Arts building for state and national historic status, despite separate requests to delay the decision from the city manager and from local business interests that want to tear down and replace it.
The board also nominated the former Central Wichita Public Library building for historic status, which could serve as a roadblock to tearing down the buildings and allow them to receive state and federal preservation grants.
The action came three days after activists seeking to save the round, blue-roofed structure from demolition presented more than 17,000 signatures on an initiative petition that could force a public vote on the fate of the Century II and the nearby former library.
The two buildings are in the sights of the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan, a $1 billion to $1.2 billion public-private project that would replace the older buildings with a new performing arts center, convention center and accompanying commercial development.
Those plans have been largely put on hold by the pandemic.
With all shows and conventions canceled due to the coronavirus threat, Century II is currently being used as an ambulance decontamination station and a remote site for members of the public to participate by teleconference in City Hall meetings.
About a dozen activists dressed in “Save Century II” T-shirts gathered at the building Monday and cheered raucously when the decision on historic recognition was reached.
“We love the building, we have 17,300 signatures from Wichita citizens who love the building and want to vote on what happens to it next,” said Celeste Racette, leader of the campaign to save it. “It is iconic, it is historic and it is architecturally significant.”
City Manager Robert Layton — who called Century II “functionally obsolete” — and a coalition of downtown boosters who organized the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan asked the preservation board to defer any decisions until after the community recovers from the pandemic.
Preservation Board member Bruce Rowley, a recent appointment to the board by Mayor Brandon Whipple and managing partner of RSM Marketing, attempted to defer a vote, saying some board members, including himself, needed more training on how to serve on the board.
Only Nick Penner, City Council member Bryan Frye’s appointee to the board and project manager at Crossland Construction, joined him.
Penner said he wanted proof that Century II’s architects, John Hickman and Roy Varenhorst, are considered masters of the modernist architecture, as the nomination letter for the building states.
In a 5-2 vote, the board approved nominating Century II, ultimately deciding that arguments about the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan or the functionality of the building were irrelevant to whether the buildings are historically and architecturally significant.
Board members John Rhodes, Janice Rich, Claire Willenberg, Robert Potter and Elena Ingle voted to support historic status. Penner and Rowley voted no.
The former library building’s nomination also passed, by a 6-1 vote with Penner joining the five who had supported Century II. Rowley voted against it.
Barring a move by the City Council, the nominations will now be sent to the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office and later the National Register of Historic Places for review.
A leader of the Master Plan group said in a written statement that the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic needs to be taken into account before decisions are made on Century II and the former library.
“We understand and respect the process of the local historic preservation board and appreciate the opportunity to be heard,” said Jim Korroch, chair of Visit Wichita, one of the coalition members. “We need to be thinking long-term and assess the economic impact of COVID-19 prior to making final decisions on these convention, performing arts and vacant buildings. We will continue to share those thoughts as the nominations of Century II and the former library building make their way to the state level.”
Both buildings were completed in the late 1960s as part of a redevelopment project aimed at creating a civic center on the east bank of the Arkansas River in downtown Wichita. They’re now both eligible for historic status, which grants limited protections and makes the buildings eligible for certain renovation grants and loans.
Several booster organizations have been pushing to remove the buildings and initiate the Master Plan: Downtown Wichita, Greater Wichita Partnership, Visit Wichita, Wichita Community Foundation, the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce and W, formerly Young Professionals of Wichita.
They sent a joint statement Friday asking the Historic Preservation Board to indefinitely suspend any decision.
So did the city manager.
“It had been anticipated that an extensive public engagement process would have been completed in 2020 to address the future use of Century II. However, the Covid-19 outbreak has halted the engagement process,” Layton said in his letter asking for a delay.
Although the Master Plan group has called for getting rid of both buildings, its letter said “there are no immediate plans to replace or demolish either of these buildings.”
The designation could place renovation restrictions on the buildings that would “put at risk the viability of future building uses,” they said.
Citing the COVID-19 pandemic, the boosters say it’s important to delay to allow “the opportunity to have a fully involved process to weigh in on the future of this area without the distraction of unemployment.”
The boosters also said that designating Century II as a historic site could affect Music Theatre Wichita’s ability to attract future performances, a notion one modern architecture expert called “ridiculous.”
“The Riverfront Legacy group has always wanted to bulldoze Century II,” he said. “They do not want the possibility of any pesky historic designation slowing that process, while claiming there are ‘no plans’ to tear it down,” said George Smart, executive director at USModernist, a national archive and advocacy nonprofit for mid-century Modernist architecture.
“The argument that historic status will create all kinds of havoc, like reducing the ability to attract quality performances, is ridiculous,” he said. “Performances take place all over the world every day (when they’re not in a pandemic) in historically protected buildings.”
Greg Kite, president of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita & Sedgwick County Inc. and treasurer of the Save Century II group, called the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan’s objections “disingenuous excuses.”
“Sometimes the best way to evaluate the legitimacy of a position is to review not what is said, but what is not said,” he wrote in a letter to the board.
“If the Riverfront Legacy group actually had a substantive basis to oppose the nominations, it would contest whether: 1) the submissions are complete, 2) the structures are historically important and/or architecturally significant, and 3) the nominations meet all of the requisite criteria. Instead, the Riverfront Legacy group presents unrelated and irrelevant propositions.”
This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 5:28 PM.
