In the summer issue of its quarterly magazine, the National Trust for Historic Preservation spotlights Union Terminal’s extensive recent renovation project.
Featuring the famed local structure on its cover (under the banner “Cincinnati Style: Art Deco Icon Union Terminal Shines Again”), NTHP’s Preservation Magazine examined Union Terminal’s $228 million restoration project and the public support
and funding that fueled it.
The piece’s author, Amy Sutherland, spoke with prime project players like architects Nancy A. Rankin and John G. Waite, who called the renovation “one of the largest preservation projects carried out [in the country] recently, and one of the most complex.”
Sutherland also focused on the public support for the project, namely via a Hamilton County tax levy. Voters approved the levy overwhelmingly in 2014, after the National Trust for Historic Preservation included Union Terminal (and Cincinnati’s Music Hall) on its list of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.”
Cincinnatians may love the train station, but they do not love tax levies, says (Cincinnati Museum Center CEO Elizabeth) Pierce. So she began to campaign in earnest. The National Trust went to work, too. Focusing on grassroots efforts in coordination with CMC, it opened a downtown pop-up location called the Yes on 8 Action Center, which served as a base for nearly four weeks as Trust staff members rallied voters. They asked people to sign pledges to support the levy. They collaborated with partners such as the Cincinnati Preservation Collective and the Cincinnati Preservation Association on evening events like concerts and meetups, usually featuring locally brewed beer. They organized lectures and panel discussions, and they took turns walking around downtown in a Union Terminal costume. Ultimately, the National Trust engaged with 14,000 of the county’s voters.
“Given the large funding needs there, we believed it could be a model for projects across the nation,” says Jennifer Sandy, associate field director for the National Trust. “To lose that building would be unthinkable.”
Read the full article — which also features photography by Ryan Kurtz — at savingplaces.org.
This article appears in Sep 11-18, 2019.