NCR Building 26 (University of Dayton)

UPDATE: On May 28, the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office concluded that Building 26 is not eligible for the National Register.

It looks like the end of the 1938 building where engineers invented code-breaking machines during World War II.

On Mar. 9, the University of Dayton announced its decision to raze the former National Cash Register Building 26 for retail and university buildings.

The National Cash Register Co., which had demolished all but two buildings on its 49-acre campus, sold the property to the University of Dayton in June 2005. Since then, the university has conducted two studies—which preservationists call flawed—that say three 1960s additions have irreversibly altered the art deco Building 26.

"We feel like we've done our due diligence," says Teri Rizvi, university spokeswoman. "There has been some opposition in the community, but we've received an enormous amount of support to go ahead and redevelop the property," says university spokeswoman Cilla Shindell.

In the Jan. 2007 study, Columbus-based ASC Group Inc. concluded, "Building 26 unquestionably fails to meet the threshold requirement of integrity and, therefore, is not eligible [for the National Register]."

But that study "has serious flaws," says Royce Yeater, director of the National Trust's Midwest Office, because they didn't evaluate the original building beneath the additions. "The National Trust is hopeful that the Ohio Historic Preservation Office will encourage the University of Dayton to engage in selective demolition and further study of Building 26 prior to proceeding with wholesale demolition of this important landmark," Yeater writes in a May 18 letter to the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office.

A new study commissioned by Preservation Dayton says the university study "misinterpreted key historical details related to Building 26 and overlooked relevant architectural elements still present and visible that tell the story of the work performed in the building." The May 17 report, submitted to the state historic preservation office, says the building is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Hundreds of people showed up for a tour of Building 26 last month. "The University of Dayton has been perpetrating this lie about the building," says Pam Miller Howard, a member of the board of Preservation Dayton, who toured Building 26. "All this stuff that we have been told for the last two years that there's nothing left to be saved isn't true."

In a February 2006 university-commissioned study, Martin-Beachler Architects estimated the cost of demolishing three additions and replicating the original facade at $3 million.

"[Restoration] is very expensive," Rizvi says. "We're a private university; we're tuition-driven. It's not something that the university feels it can take on."

"We will continue to listen to the community and to historic preservation professionals," wrote Thomas Burkhardt, vice president for finance and administrative services at the University of Dayton, in an op-ed piece published in the Dayton Daily News on May 5. "We will continue to keep an open mind. However, as a tuition-driven university that has already stepped forward to lead one of the largest and most complicated redevelopment efforts in Dayton, we must balance competing needs. We cannot justify committing university resources to rebuilding a building that lost its historical integrity decades ago."

The university has a $2.5 million grant from the state to remediate an 11-acre portion of the land, which is a brownfield. That Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund grant includes money to demolish Building 26.

Politicians have called for a review of the university's procedures. "Public dollars should not be used to erase public history," says Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH). "The University of Dayton must follow the Section 106 process to determine if Building 26 must be preserved."

Howard says people of all ages showed up for the April tour. "Clearly a historic struggle occurred in that building," she says. "The average citizen cares so deeply about this building, not just people who call themselves preservationists. They relate to the global implications of that building, and they saw what was there."

Rizvi says the university hasn't yet decided when it will demolish Building 26.

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