SAVING HISTORIC PLACES
It takes all of us working together to ensure that historic places remain part of our evolving city. You can engage in this work on many levels, from weighing in on local and state issues that impact our historic places, to learning about the history of your neighborhood, to restoring the vintage windows in your home. Below are some questions the AHC is commonly asked about saving or restoring historic spaces, but here are some basic steps to saving places:
If you have some information beyond the questions below, fill out our contact form.
SAVING OR RENOVATING A HOME OR BUILDING I OWN
WHY AND HOW TO SAVE OTHER PLACES
SAVING OR RENOVATING A HOME OR BUILDING I OWN
Where do I start if I want to restore or renovate my historic home, apartment or building?
Our resource directory is a good place to start. These businesses and organizations offer information, products, or services for historic homes and spaces and support our work.
If you’re planning a major renovation, our partner organization Restore Oregon provides a toolkit to guide you through the process and decisions you’ll need to make when approaching the restoration and reuse of a historic building. This guide is oriented toward small-to-medium commercial properties, but much of the content will apply to homes, barns, and other types of structures.
The AHC offers this free window repair and weatherization guide geared toward historic home windows. We also offer window repair workshops on occasion. Sign up for the AHC e-news, or to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn to find out about workshops and events.
If you’re looking to hire someone to help with a repair or update your windows, our resource directory is a good place to start.
How can I repair or update the original windows in my historic home?
How can I find out more about my house’s history?
Every year the AHC offers a series on Researching your House History showing how to use local resources to find clues to the history of your home and neighborhood. If you want to start your research soon, AHC members get access to the 4-part video series.
How do I know if my home or property is considered historic?
As a general rule, a home or structure must be at least 50 years old, and have local, regional or national significance for its association with people, events, activities, or developments that were important in the past. It also must retain most of its original integrity. The City of Portland has an interactive Historic Resource Inventory map that shows buildings, portions of buildings, structures, objects, landscapes, trees, sites, places, and districts that have been documented as having or potentially having architectural, historical, or cultural significance.
However, this map is incomplete and out-of-date. The City hasn’t updated this inventory since 1984, but as part of the Historic Resources Code Project is doing a new citywide inventory to identify historic properties/resources and better define the significance of each resource.
Restore Oregon, a partner organization that works to save historic places statewide, offers a Historic Resources Inventory Toolkit: a downloadable planning guide explains the process and importance of having an up-to-date historic resource inventory, which can impact land use decisions. The work can be conducted by anyone, and does not require a public hearing or consent of private property owners.
I own a historic home and want to ensure it’s protected into the future. Can I do this?
Designating your property as historic is a start. Different cities have different policies for this. Portland recently revised their methods for historic designation and created a tiered system. You can find out more here.
That said, under current Oregon law, the only way an owner of an historic property can ensure the preservation and protection of their property in perpetuity is through the donation of a historic conservation easement. A conservation easement is a voluntary, legal agreement that allows the owner of a historic property to retain title and use of a property and, at the same time, ensure its long-term preservation in perpetuity, for all future owners. Restore Oregon, a partner organization that works statewide to save historic places, helps administer conservation easements and provides more in-depth information on their website.
If you think your property is eligible to be on the National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service is a good place to find out whether your property is eligible and what the listing process is like. Oregon’s State Historic Preservation Office, which administers the National Register program, is another great source of information. Listing on the National Register provides eligibility for certain financial benefits for commercial and multi-family buildings in the form of federal tax credits for rehabilitation.
WHY AND HOW TO SAVE OTHER PLACES
The Architectural Heritage Center has a volunteer advocacy group that continually monitors threatened historic spaces in our city, as well as local and state policies that impact historic places. If an historic place is under threat of demolition or the city or state is debating a policy that impacts historic spaces, the AHC shares information broadly through our blog, e-news, and social media with an explanation of how you can weigh in. The best way to receive this information is to sign up for the AHC e-news, or to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
At the city level, the Historic Landmarks Commission makes recommendations to the various commissions and City Council on issues regarding historic neighborhoods and properties. You can follow news on their work here.
Restore Oregon is a partner organization that works to save historic places statewide.
Portland Tomorrow works to preserve the best places and landmarks of our past.
Oregon Black Pioneers works to preserve the history of Black Oregonians.
I want to weigh in on issues that impact Portland’s historic places. How do I do this?
What efforts are underway to save Portland’s historic Black neighborhoods?
The Architectural Heritage Center acknowledges that discrimination against African Americans and other races and cultures has a deep history in Oregon and in our country. The AHC has a decades-long history of working with Portland’s Black community to document and save places that have meaning to their history in this city, work which culminated in the late-1990s publication of 225-page Cornerstones of Community: The Buildings of Portland’s African American History by a project team coordinated by Cathy Galbraith, founding executive director of our organization.
Building on this work, the AHC partnered with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability to draft a National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation (MPD) form for African American resources in Portland, which was accepted by the National Register of Historic Places for final approval and listing, along with a National Register listing for Billy Webb Elks Lodge (Williams Avenue YWCA), a gathering space for various African American social, political, educational, and civil rights groups from 1926-1973. The MPD is an umbrella document that groups together historic resources so that individual property owners can more easily list their property on the National Register of Historic Places.
The nonprofit Albina Vision Trust was created to steward the vision for the future of lower Albina, a key historically Black Portland neighborhood. This organization works to honor the neighborhood’s past by transforming what exists today into a socially and economically inclusive community of residents, businesses, artists, makers, and visitors.
A current effort to tell a more inclusive story of Oregon's past is led by Restore Oregon in partnership with the University of Oregon (UO) Just Futures Institute, Oregon Black Pioneers, Moreland Resource Consulting, Clatsop Community College Historic Preservation Program, and the Architectural Heritage Center. The Albina Preservation Initiative is a step forward to make preservation work better for Black communities and a transformative shift for Oregon.
What’s being done to preserve the historic resources with significance to Portland’s other communities of color?
Portland has a racist past and a history of racist planning that has caused people of color to be displaced from their homes and have their neighborhoods dismantled. The City’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability is in the development stage of an Anti-Displacement Action Plan to create and coordinate strategies for the City to minimize and mitigate the harm faced by vulnerable communities because of our city’s growth. Everyone is invited to participate. You can learn about this plan and sign up for email updates and ways to participate.
There are a number of local nonprofits working to tell a more diverse story of our city’s past in order to create a more just and inclusive present and future. The Architectural Heritage Center partners with the Japanese American Museum of Oregon (JAMO), Lan Su Chinese Garden, Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (OJMCHE), and Portland Chinatown Museum in this work (and contributing AHC members and above get free admission for four to these museums). Recently the AHC worked with JAMO to tell the stories of people and businesses that helped build Portland’s Japantown, some of which still exist today. As part of this project, we’re partnering with JAMO to do walking tours of Japantown. We also partner with OJMCHE to do walking tours of the South Waterfront that tell the story of how an urban renewal project displaced a Jewish neighborhood from that neighborhood.
We regularly advocate for historic built spaces that are important to our communities of color. Sign up for the AHC e-news, or to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn to find out about future projects and opportunities to weigh in on issues impacting historic spaces important to our communities of color.
Find out more.
Native American Art & Culture Foundation through exhibits and events provokes thought, spark discussion, explore solutions and add a vital contribution to our communities.
Vanport Mosaic is a nonprofit that works to amplify, honor, and preserve the silenced histories in our region through exhibits, oral histories and more.
Can historic buildings be adapted to create affordable housing?
Historic buildings can and do provide affordable housing in Portland, often through nonprofit organizations like Reach Community Development, Northwest Housing Alternatives and others. Historic buildings may be an important part of the solution to our current housing shortage. According to a 2021 article by the American Planning Association: “Could adaptive reuse resolve our lack of housing and excess of empty, unproductive buildings? Some experts say yes, but to help make it happen, planners and other policy makers will need to remove regulatory obstacles that stand in the way.”
There are several incentives for restoration and reuse in Portland. And in 2022, the City rolled out a regulation change that will make a big difference to homeowners who live in the city’s historic districts. The rules will allow people to retrofit their homes to make them more resilient to climate change, and also to add additional housing units. The changes preserve a rigorous public review and conversation before that historic landmark or a historic building in the historic district can be demolished.
Find out more.
New rules allow Portland homeowners to retrofit and adapt historic homes more easily, Think Out Loud, Oregon Public Broadcasting, February 2022
The City of Portland has a map showing demolition permits that are currently being considered. The process and requirements for demolition are laid out on the City’s Residential Demolition permits page. If the house is a historic or conservation landmark or is located in a historic resource overlay zone, it may be subject to additional notification and delay requirements under the Zoning Code. Details are on the demolition permit page.
If a historic home in your neighborhood is not a conservation landmark or in an historic resource zone and has a demolition permit under review, the best course of action is to try and talk with the owner to see if alternatives to demolition are still possible. You can find the name of the property owner on Portland maps.
How can I find out if a home in my neighborhood is scheduled for demolition?
I’m concerned about a historic building in my neighborhood. What can I do?
Here is some general advice about if you’re concerned about a historic place in your neighborhood. It won’t be easy, or fast, but it can be done.
Start now, don’t wait. If you think a building is valuable and it's at risk, don’t just hope that someone else will understand its value. Too many buildings are lost to neglect of maintenance, vandalism and fire. Start by talking with your neighbors—do they also see the value?
Find partners. What other groups will join with you and help make the place a useful part of your community? Your neighborhood association might be a good place to start.
Find a use. A place/building needs to have a function or use that makes it affordable and useful to some individual or group. If you can’t find an adaptive use, it's not very likely to be saved.
Success stories exist, and it can be helpful to learn how other places were saved. A few examples of successful saves: the story of the Morris Marks House, the history of the Hollywood Theatre, and the efforts to save Thompson Elk Fountain.
Where can I find out more about Portland’s historic architecture?
You’ve come to the right place! Visit our Explore Historic Portland Online page to view our interactive map of Portland landmarks and start to learn about Portland’s historic places. We also offer a Story Map of Japantown and a guidebook to the history and architecture of our Central Eastside neighborhood. We have a permanent exhibit based on this guidebook in our second floor galleries, which takes advantage of our views of the neighborhood.
Our walking tours are a great way to explore Portland’s historic neighborhoods. Touring Portland’s neighborhoods on foot gets you up close to historic architecture while you hear about the unique storied past of these places.
Our rotating exhibits explore different facets of Portland architecture and history. We also have a research library you can visit by appointment.
The City of Portland has an interactive Historic Resource Inventory map that shows buildings, portions of buildings, structures, objects, landscapes, trees, sites, places, and districts that have been documented as having or potentially having architectural, historical, or cultural significance. However, this map is incomplete and out-of-date. The City hasn’t updated this inventory since 1984, but as part of the Historic Resources Code Project is doing a new citywide inventory to identify historic properties/resources and better define the significance of each resource.
Find out more.
These local blogs also contain a wealth of information about Portland architecture and history.
Building on History – Portland preservation blog by Fred Leeson
Portland Architecture – a blog about design in the Rose City by Brian Libby
Cafe Unknown – Portland history and architecture blog by Dan Haneckow
Building Oregon has images and documentation focusing on the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest
Where can I find out more about Portland’s historic architecture?
Is saving historic buildings through restoration and re-use really better for the environment?
Yes! And there is substantial data to prove it.
Restore Oregon asked ECONorthwest to analyze data from across the U.S. to quantify how restoration and reuse vs replacement helps achieve climate goals. For a 1500 s.f. home it equates to taking 93 cars off the road for a year. For a 10,000 sf. commercial building, it equates to taking 1,028 cars off the road for a year.
And Architecture 2030 has teamed up with the National Trust to create a tool that estimates the operational and embodied carbon emissions associated with reusing and upgrading an existing building or replacing it with new construction.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “Rehabilitating historic properties can be a critical part of promoting energy efficiency by preserving the energy already represented by existing buildings (known as "embodied energy"), rather than expending additional energy for new construction. A new, green, energy-efficient office building that includes as much as 40 percent recycled materials would nevertheless take approximately 65 years to recover the energy lost in demolishing a comparable existing building.”
If you’re looking to do energy efficient improvements to your historic space, our resource directory is a good place to start. Portland Clean Energy Fund offers grants and incentives for certain energy efficient updates.
Find out more.
Sustainable Whole Building Guide, Whole Building Design Guide, 2023
Building Reuse as a Sustainable Practice in Architecture, Mykalene J. Piva, Portland State University, 2019.