Finding a Better Fit

The new Corporate Good Neighbor Initiative seeks to tuck chain stores more gracefully into commercial districts.

By RACHEL ADAMS

Since 1906, a Beaux-Arts–style U.S. Post Office building, with its great dome, curved facade, and ornate marble interior, had stood at the corner of Lincoln Highway and First Street in downtown DeKalb, Ill. Yet in 1995, the post office became the site of an all-too-common urban undoing: The city razed the landmark so that Walgreens, the most successful drugstore chain in the country, could replace it with its standard 13,000-square-foot building. The store's low-slung stature and large front parking lot seem aberrant amid the streetscape's substantial older buildings, most of them lined up against the sidewalk. DeKalb's Walgreens exemplifies the sort of negative corporate stamp that can disturb the historic integrity of a community.

Although the services of chain stores in urban areas are valuable, their architectural disruption is not. Last October, thanks to grants of some $70,000 from Cambridge, Mass., preservation and urban-design planner Ronald Lee Fleming and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the National Trust and three nonprofit partners launched the Corporate Good Neighbor Initiative to help chains avoid demolishing historic structures and fit stores less awkwardly into commercial neighborhoods. Working in accordance with the initiative, national chains such as Walgreens are counseled by the Trust either to occupy existing structures or to comply with preservation-sensitive design standards for new construction. Preserving pedestrian-friendly streetscapes is the intent.

"One of the main objectives is maintaining a dialogue with chain corporations," says Peter Brink, senior vice president of programs at the Trust. "Having a nonantagonistic relationship is very important. With the Corporate Good Neighbor Initiative, we're starting to focus not only on drugstores but also on big-box retailers, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, and service stations."

In planning the new effort, the Trust used one of its established programs, the Drugstore Initiative, as a model. With similar objectives, the program has helped preserve 29 historic structures in 17 communities since its inception four years ago. Prompted by this initiative, the country's four main drugstore companies—Walgreens, cvs, Rite Aid, and Eckerd—provided the Trust written commitments not to demolish buildings listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places. When these companies threaten significant structures not on the Register, the Trust initiates discussion of more positive options—the earlier the better, says Brink. Working with community groups, the Drugstore Initiative has overseen many successes—from saving a historic school in Albany, N.Y., to moving 19th-century mill houses in Keene, N.H., to preventing construction on a Revolutionary War battlefield in Edison, N.J.

Yet the choice is not always between demolition and reuse. Often, proposed new buildings have been modified to maintain the historic character of an area, with close attention given to positioning, height, color, and materials. In 2000, the Drugstore Initiative employed such a tactic: It joined local leaders to advise cvs, eager to build at a prominent intersection in the North Shore neighborhood of St. Petersburg, Fla., to spare a historic structure on part of the site and modify its typical store model. The result was a new art deco store reminiscent of a 1920s theater, with a reduced parking lot and diagonal corner entrance. (The older building was saved.) Like the drugstore initiative, the fledgling Good Neighbor Initiative will both oppose demolition and support such community-friendly construction plans. "This won't be a one-size-fits-all concept," says Brink. "Each situation will require a different discussion of strategies, of design options."

And different approaches to handling the corporations themselves. Communicating with key executives is one part of the solution. Preservation groups and citizens' organizations also play a critical part; in St. Petersburg, the Trust's southern office worked with the Florida Division of Historical Resources and the North Shore Neighborhood Association, granting $2,500 to hire a preservation-minded architect. The new initiative will also employ this type of "pincer" strategy, operating simultaneously at the corporate and community levels.

The initiative has already lined up several projects. During the past year, the Trust's midwest office and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois have been collaborating to save a Victorian-era commercial corner in the Gold Coast area of downtown Chicago. cvs, which targeted the corner for demolition, has since agreed to adaptive use. As the Corporate Good Neighbor Initiative gains momentum, it will work directly on this and other ongoing reuse plans. Scenic America, the Conservation Fund, and the Townscape Institute—the partners in the initiative—are working with the Trust to bring these projects to fruition.

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