Urbana recommends against landmark designation
URBANA – City planning staff and Mayor Laurel Prussing are recommending against designating the Historic Lincoln Hotel as a local landmark, saying it could hinder the new owner’s chances of establishing a viable downtown hotel.
The landmark issue will come up for consideration at Monday’s city council meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. at the Urbana City Building, 400 S. Vine St.
Prussing said in an interview that to preserve the hotel for future generations, it must be a viable business. She said she therefore is opposing the landmark designation.
“The essential purpose of that whole building was to be a hotel,” Prussing said. “That’s really the highest and best use for it, and it is real historic preservation … because otherwise the building will just fall apart.”
The new owners of the hotel, Global Hotel Management of Normal, are opposing the landmark designation, saying it could hurt their efforts to attract a national hotel brand and renovate the hotel. The company acquired the hotel in March 2008.
The owner of a landmark building is required to get a certificate of appropriateness from the historic preservation commission to make a significant change to the exterior of the building, such as any addition or demolition, any removal of architectural features, or removing or adding new doors and windows.
Global Management officials say that national hotel chains have told them they don’t want the hassle of having to get approval for any exterior changes. Getting a national brand is crucial to the hotel’s success, they say.
In a memo to the council, city planner Rebecca Bird acknowledges that the 128-room hotel, built in 1923, easily meets city standards for designating a property a local historic landmark. She notes that was begun by a large group of citizens as a local booster project and that the hotel was designed by Joseph W. Royer, the most prestigious architect in Urbana during the first half of the 20th century.
Royer designed, among other buildings, the Champaign County Courthouse, Urbana High School, the Urbana Free Library and several other notable Champaign-Urbana buildings. The hotel is in the Tudor Revival style, built of dark brick and stucco, with half-timbering and stone detailing, Bird wrote.
The hotel site also is where an earlier inn was, where Abraham Lincoln used to stay as a circuit-riding attorney.
But Bird wrote that city staff is still recommending against landmark designation.
“Evidence submitted by the current owner indicates that designation as a local landmark at this time will substantially hinder its potential for revitalization as a fully functional tourist hotel in downtown Urbana,” Bird wrote.
“Given the importance of the property to the vitality of downtown and the economic development of the city as a whole, staff recommends that the Urbana City Council deny the landmark designation until such time as loss of this historic resource is immediately threatened and/or designation no longer hinders the economic viability of the property,” she wrote.
Prussing said that in a meeting with the man who filed the landmark application, Urbana resident Brian Adams, she promised that she would designate $10,000 in tax increment financing money to be used as a revolving loan fund.