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Days are numbered for a 102-year-old factory in Cumberland, Md., that once supplied lace curtains to the White House.

This month, the state, which owns the Footer Dye Works, will sign a 50-year lease to a hotel developer with no plans to preserve the building, abandoned for a decade.

Locals have been concerned about the 45,000-square-foot brick building for several years, as a deal between the Canal Place Preservation and Development Authority and Pennsylvania-based Trestle Development lagged, due in part to the authority's lawsuits against the developer.

The authority's current plan calls for the demolition of the single-story annex to the building, about 60 percent of the building's total footprint, to create parking for a new hotel and two restaurants.... Read More →

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Abandoned for more than a decade, plans for renovation of a Queen Anne-style house built in the mid-1880s in New Bedford, Mass., were finally in place when it succumbed to a fire last month. It was used as a dormitory for the Swain School of Design and later by the University of Massachusetts. After falling into disrepair for 10 years, the city acquired it, and in keeping with its interest in preservation, the property was to be turned over to the Waterfront Historic Area League.

"It was a poster child for vacant and abandoned properties in New Bedford," says Lisa Sughrue, the league's executive director. "Its restoration," she adds, "would have been a catalyst for change and progress in that neighborhood."... Read More →

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On a clear September day in 1776, smoke rose from lower Manhattan as the British advanced into the city. From his headquarters on the Morris-Jumel estate, Gen. George Washington may have paused in the shade of a young elm tree to take in the scene.

Today, that tree still stands in what is now Washington Heights, though at about 110 feet tall and almost six feet in diameter, it is doubtful that Washington would recognize it. Affectionately known by locals as "the dinosaur," this living witness to those events 230 years ago it is now one of 25 trees in New York City that will be preserved—through cloning.

As part of Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to plant one million trees in the city in the next decade, Connecticut-based Bartlett Tree Experts is donating 250 trees to the city, all genetic copies of historic trees found in the city's five boroughs. Cuttings from the trees were taken earlier this month and sent to an Oregon nursery, where they will be grafted onto roots to create "clones" that will be planted throughout the city. ... Read More →

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It may look like a boarded-up fast-food restaurant, but fans of a Denny's restaurant in northwest Seattle want to make it a landmark.

Complete with a swooping roof, large glass windows, and a futuristic flair, this particular Denny's is characterized as Googie, a bold, post-World War II architectural style that first became popular in Los Angeles. Architect Clarence Mayhew designed the building in 1964 as a Manning's Cafeteria restaurant, which went out of business and became a Denny's in 1983. Although the structure is now boarded up, it remains one of Seattle's few remaining examples of Googie architecture.

Benaroya Companies, a real-estate development company that bought the structure in 2006 from the Seattle Monorail Project is currently in close negotiations with Rhapsody Partners, a Kirkland-based development firm that wants to construct a condominium tower on the site.

However, Rhapsody's condo plans have been temporarily sidetracked. Earlier this month, Benaroya nominated the Denny's for landmark status.... Read More →

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One of the five buildings that comprised the University of Minnesota's original campus in Minneapolis is up for lease, and the school is struggling to find the right tenant.

"We've been struggling to find a use for the building because it's a little small for the university's typical volume of operations," says James Litsheim, senior architect of capital planning for the university. "However, someone else could easily use it for office space, a coffee shop—just about any kind of use you can think of for a smaller space."... Read More →

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