The Historic Ice House.

Built in 1830.

Sold by Historic Preservation Commissioner Jim Quinn to the group that demolished it in 2004.

A former Historic Preservation Commissioner lays it bare . . .

Interviewer: You sat on the HPC for how long?

Former HP Commissioner : (laughing) If I tell you that it might identify me! Suffice it to say that when my time ended I decided not to reapply. I doubt I would have been picked again, anyway. The other members were by now aware of my leanings, and it's the City Council picks us, you know, we are not elected. I didn't fit in. I had a strong interest in the history of the region. God knows how I slipped by them! To make it look well-rounded, I guess. It wasn't. More and more the City Council was selecting members that had no historical interest or qualifications. . . Many of these new people knew nothing at all about Wilmington history. The City Staff was continually having to explain things to them about the area. These people seemed to come to us from out of nowhere. Developers, builders, architects, contractors. . . anything but historians. They viewed our old buildings not as objects for preservation, but as obstacles to getting at the valuable real-estate lying beneath them.

Interviewer: "You say your leanings made you something of an outcast?"

Former HP Commissioner: "Yes. These new people . . . talked a strange newspeak language I wasn't quite in on. They talked of development as preservation and spoke of ways to modify historical properties that would also preserve them . . . It sounded good but if you looked at it closely you saw it was all a fraud. They were only trying to find excuses to let the old buildings be removed. Those of us who wanted to protect the buildings in their entirety were dubbed 'hard liners' as though that had some negative connotation. The new people talked down to us. We were 'old fashioned' and not 'with it.' We were holding up progress downtown. I guess I wasn't 'with it.' I felt like an outsider, yes.

Interviewer: How did the commission treat the applicants?

Former HP Commissioner: "Certain members of the board were very changeable in their attitudes. They morphed from grim to glib depending on which developer was standing before us. Some developers seemed. . . deliberately snubbed . . . Others were treated warmly and with open arms. It all had the look of a fixed fight, a rigged game. Sometimes it was so painfully obvious that I was embarrassed just sitting up there. Month after month I watched them harass the little people - a homeowner who wanted to so some simple thing to his house, change the paint color or put aluminum clad windows, say. But if you were a certain developer you were on first name basis and treated royally, like an old friend. You were given every consideration. I was feeling more and more hypocritical being connected with it all. More and more there were people on the board who were not even from Wilmington and very few of them lived downtown . . .

Interviewer: So you had disagreements?

Former HP Commissioner: "With the new members . . . I found myself frequently clashing. Some of the things they said seemed so false . . . I couldn't even grasp their principles and aims. There seemed to be no moral guideline. The only thing mattered was who knew who. Most of the commissioners were architects and contractors. At times they seemed openly and nakedly competing with each other for the developer's approval, as though they wanted to be associated with the projects themselves! I all but expected them to get up and start biding! It was utterly shameless - and laughable. I told one of them that if he wanted to be a commissioner he needed to go to acting school! The joke went right over his head. As these types of members were becoming more and more in the majority, I felt lost at sea. Eventually I just learned to keep my mouth shut about things. But I was still watching the spectacle.

"I realized the HPC was moving quietly in a direction that had nothing to do with preserving downtown Wilmington's history, and everything to do with increasing big scale development . . . My conclusion was that the HPC had become a front for special interests. It was being controlled by certain groups who used the City Council and the HPC as strong arms to protect their own projects. The City Council determined just who was selected to the HPC and the City Council was directly manipulated by campaign money. But I believe there were other monies being exchanged . . . I believe at least some members of the HPC were actually being paid off. Only the money was being paid to them before they were 'selected' to the commission so that nothing would look amiss.

"You must understand how it all works.  The positions are appointed - that is, individuals are selected from a group of applicants.  The applicants may all be well qualified . . . but qualified to do what?  To some extent their business affiliations already determine their direction.  If they are architects or builders, they will be interested in historic modification rather than preservation - things that allow them to demonstrate their abilities, use their associations with other builders, etc., perhaps even get hired to do the job. So even before the appointment is made we are already moving away from the Preservation goal. 

"Now why, among these individuals is a certain individual selected?  Depends on who is doing the selection. The head of your local history department is going to pick somebody quite different than a City Council chair who is also in the real-estate business, isn't he.  So the new commissioners are being selected because of their friendliness to a particular agenda - a money-making agenda.  There is very little money to be made in restoring old buildings.  The money to be made is in tearing them down and building bigger ones. 

"The Commissioners are picked according to their friendliness to the money-making program. A project comes up, is it yes or no?  Depends who is standing before them. Is he a friend, is he involved?  Why was PPD out-selected in favor of less money to the City than the local group who eventually got the property where the parking deck used to be?  That's easy enough.  PPD wasn't friendly. They were outsiders. They didn't know who to pay. Now that disaster didn't involve the HPC but it's the same principle. The controllers can't control all the votes at a hearing, but then, they don't need to.  They only need to influence some of them - the two or three that make all the difference when the vote is cast."

Interviewer: "Are people who are strictly against preservation ever selected for the commission?"

Former HP Commissioner:  "That's a silly question.  Every one of the men who tore down the Ice House declared themselves preservationists.  David Nathans, Toconis, all of them.  This new man who is planning to build condos on top of the Iron Works. . . he is also a preservationist.  It's a lovely word, isn't it.  Lord, deliver our town from such preservationists!"

Interviewer: "Why do you think you were chosen?"

Former HP Commissioner: "At that time things were a little different than now. The Council was still in transition. And Jim Quinn was not the mayor-pro-tem."

Interviewer: "Jim Quinn?"

Former HP Commissioner: "City Councilman, real-estate salesman, and mayor-pro-tem. It was Quinn who sold the Ice House to Taconis, who demolished it. Quinn was paid handsomely, about $50,000 in real-estate commissions. It was Quinn who had the listing on the property. He blocked the sale of the Ice House to other groups that might have preserved it, since these sales would have required him to split the commission with another agent. But that was only the least of it . . . It was Quinn who showed Taconis how to get around the HPC, guiding him through the machinery. Quinn showed Taconis how to get the building condemned. Quinn knew all about this because he also served on the HPC."

Interviewer: "Amazing! Sounds like the Historic Preservation Commissioners are just as bad as the developers."

Former HP Commissioner: "They are the developers. . . in many cases. And they are a transition point leading to the City Council. They groom themselves there, cut their eyeteeth on the bigger money to come. As architects and contractors they may be directly employed by the developer-applicants. The HPC, as shaped by the City Council, is a mathematical equation designed to empower corruption, not block it."

"So, the Historic Preservation Commissioner is selected according to who is most friendly to the City Council's program. The program now is development because this is where the money is coming from. Why do you think the HPC went against City Staff recommendations on the recent Iron Works deal? Almost unheard of. The excuse given was to 'protect' the Iron Works from demolition but that had nothing to do with it. The scanty remains that will be left of the Iron Works once the developer removes the roof, which is basically almost the whole building, will be demolished anyway during the process of the new construction, since the project as written is completely impossible. Some of the HPC members know this - or not. The honest ones are either opposed to the project or are dupes. But if they are 'friendly' they could care less. When the whole thing falls down the developer will simply cry Oops! and sweep off the remains. Not his fault, he tried!

Interviewer: "Even if it did succeed the project would look quite stupid. The building as depicted is almost shocking to look at - totally out of character for the site proposed."

Former HP Commissioner: "One of the most ridiculous and flamboyant structures I have ever seen. When I saw it I almost laughed out loud. A fully healthy and usable historic building is being converted into a sort of fancy ruins.  And as for the walls purported to be left standing like an ugly old skirt around the bottom, no guarantee even those flimsy ramparts would be maintained five or ten years from now."

Interviewer: "Does the HPC know this?"

Former HP Commissioner: "It's simply not important to them. It's not their responsibility. Now you've got to remember that this is the same group that will fine a person for changing the color of his shutters if he does not comply with their regs. And yet they are letting their new friend . . . I won't say his name . . . bury one of the town's most important old buildings beneath four new stories! Amazing! Or horrific, I should say. You can't imagine how awful it is to sit on such a panel night after night, observing this kind of hypocrisy around you. But I quit long before then. I understand it's gotten much worse now. I pity the few honest people on there [the HPC], it must be terrible for them. They must feel trapped in a bad dream.

"And so I wanted desperately to get off the HPC. . . The City Council and their contributors were running a rigged game to the benefit of themselves and their friends. If you weren't 'friendly' you were not 'in the game' - and kept out of the game, which is to say, kept in the dark. Now over time more and more 'friendly' personnel have come into the group and this accounts for the bizarre changes in policy we are seeing nowadays. Ultimately, it means that there is no real Historic Preservation system in Wilmington, NC, at this time. We have a Historic Development and Demolition system. Wilmington is a frontier town where 'might is right' and the rest of us just eat crow.

Interviewer (sniggering): "That's encouraging! But do you have anything hopeful you can say to us?"

Former HP Commissioner: "Just this . . . They say the same thing was going on in Charleston about 30 years ago, until at last the people took action and put a stop to it. If they hadn't they might have seen half their city torn down and converted into high-density housing projects. But in Charleston the people woke up in time. I wonder if they will ever wake up in Wilmington?

"It's to the landowner's advantage to stop it. Where do you think the property values are higher, in downtown Charleston or downtown Wilmington? Or compare Boone to Blowing Rock. Same story. In downtown Boone you can't give the property away, but in Blowing Rock it's worth a fortune. A strong historic preservation system is good for landowners. But you have to look to the future. . . maybe five or ten years down the road. Unfortunately, the small-minded developers in Wilmington are just grabbing for the quick buck. In five years they will by have done their damage and moved on. And leaving us to deal with the mess they have made of our town."

- This former Historic Preservation Commissioner asked not to be named. We thank him/her for speaking out.

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