Unknown Speaker 31:02 Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining the Ohio local history alliances annual meeting. I know we were hoping to have it in person this year but I want to thank you for joining us virtually again, and thank you for joining us for our first session of the day which is historic properties in Ada, I will turn it over to Polly and Elizabeth to share their screen, but like Ryan said if you have any questions during the presentation please go ahead and enter them into that q&a box and we will get to those at the end of the presentation. Unknown Speaker 31:49 So our first slide here shows a really wonderful old soap building soap manufacturing structure, and we are welcoming you to accessibility considerations for historic properties. This course has been approved for AIA continuing education. If anyone is interested in that and we can give you the methods for turning this in. Unknown Speaker 32:27 So our presenters today are Elizabeth Corbin Murphy FA principle of protect perspectives architecture. Elizabeth is an AIA Ohio gold medal architect dedicated to preservation and restoration technology and design. She consults with building owners and architects regarding state and federal rehabilitation tax credits, design, and adaptive use related to old or historic structures, detailed restoration specifications, historic interiors and design guidelines for historic urban centers. And next we have Polly Lyneham Blum associate AIA, a perfect perspective, architecture, Polly is a technical preservation specialist for our historic architecture practice. Following a successful career working in senior leadership communications and marketing positions. She enjoys architectural and historic research working on national register nominations for commercial buildings, apartments, and and and a historic pedestrian bridge. Unknown Speaker 33:33 So, we will start with the basic, when does ABA kick in. So we want to talk about the accessibility considerations for historic properties. The Americans with Disabilities Act is often difficult to approach in and historic structure. If you look at the photo here, we have many many many steps before you can get to the top. So today's goal is to introduce some federally funded forces. So to simplify the approach to preservation and accessibility decisions and to demonstrate how to make decisions that impact or control the scope of work, especially for accessibility. We hope to give you a process by which you can understand how to make your building more accessible, even if it doesn't actually meet the letter of the law, eligibility for federal rehabilitation grants is very very important to most of you. So, we are talking here about the Americans with Disabilities Act as it relates to certified historic structures structures that are listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places or structures that are part of a national register Historic District. There are, if you're in Ohio, there are provisions in the building code for certified historic structures, which can include some locally designated structures as well. If you're looking for federal funding you need to follow the federal rules, but you can use the Ohio basic building code to address your accessibility needs as well. So, why is accessibility important. These numbers are sort of staggering. And I think that we often turn a blind eye to the number of disabilities that we have within our population. 25.6% of adults in the US have some type of disability. Now sometimes that's a temporary disability. If you're on crutches because you broke your leg. You are in the classification of disability, while you're in that situation. And if you've been in that situation, then you understand how difficult it is to negotiate buildings that are not set up to, to accommodate you. So, we were talking about mobility. Cognitive situations, independent living situations, hearing, vision and self care. Often, we have a person who might need help. Even navigating a path through a building, so we want to talk about how we can simplify some of those things within your historic structures without major construction work. So, it's also important that accessibility is good for business. You want to give 100% of your customers the ability to work with you. It's really, really important, why would you turn away a paying customer. Let's not if we don't have to. So, Unknown Speaker 37:26 it's often, especially if it's easy, consider adding to your project. The accommodations for people with disabilities. Now if you look at this slide. This is an entry and accommodation made into a small restaurant where you walk in the front door. And, if you will, your wheelchair straight on to the left, in front of you, you could go up to three feet to where the tables are, and most able bodied people would just walk up the stair with handrails. For those who have balanced problems, but that is a very very easy way to get people, all people into your building. Now, mind you, the door into this historic structure is very tight, it is a full three foot so you can get the average wheelchair in there, some, some of the mobile wheelchairs are sometimes wider than three feet but they tried to accommodate people in wheelchairs that will get through the average size door. Okay so what triggers, or tempers accessibility regulations. The Americans with Disabilities Act, is actually a civil rights legislation. And so it didn't just come about because some building inspectors thought it was a good idea. The Americans with Disabilities Act came about after a lot of protest. And it was passed, not until the 90s Actually, the first Rehabilitation Act of 1973 accommodated some barrier free, and especially barrier free in government buildings. And so, the next 20 years was spent studying how to accommodate most people. So we had fair housing legislation in the 60s and 80s, the Architectural Barriers Act, in 1968. The first Rehabilitation Act 1973 And the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was the really sweeping legislation in 1990 and rehabbed in 2008 and the 1990 legislation is the one that that really started to change the way the building codes, and the developers and the government in their housing, and all of their public buildings started to look at getting people in and out of the, of the building, the National Historic Preservation Act was passed in 1966, and it has accommodations for how to approach accessibility as well. The Ohio building codes. Chapter 34 is based on the International Building Code, and that building code has accommodation for existing structures and for historic structures. So those are a couple of the things I'd like to point out as we move forward today, how to accommodate within your historic structure without changing its historic character. So Are there guidelines to walk through these regulations. When I was a teenager, my mother, if I wanted to go out my mother would ask me all these questions who, what, where, when, why and how, if I couldn't answer them all. And I wasn't allowed to leave. So, those questions, always run through my head when I'm approaching any project, or, you know, no matter how small, who, what, where, when, why and how. So Are there guidelines to walk through these regulations. There's maybe more guidelines than you want, but if you're doing a certain kind of government funded housing, then you must use universal design, which means you design, even for disability people with disabilities to walk through your apartment. It doesn't mean that the entire apartment has to be Unknown Speaker 42:14 re accommodated for a wheelchair that doesn't happen all the time but universal design means that anyone is welcome. So the, the a DAG, the first one on that list are the guidelines that go along with the Americans with Disabilities Act ancy standards are building standards, and there are Anssi standards for disability accommodations within buildings section 504 is particular to public housing, and then the Ohio building code is what we follow on any building. So, sometimes depending on what you're building, or what you're rehabilitating your project could have all five of those sets of guidelines to follow. And frankly, that's why you need to hire a professional because it's almost impossible to figure out how all those things go together without a little bit of help. Now, on the bottom is the Secretary of Interior standards for the treatment of historic properties. If you are using federal funding on your historic structures, you must follow the Secretary of Interior standards for the treatment of historic properties. And you must balance the building code issues, and the designing for disabilities goal, with the goal of treating the historic properly correctly. So sometimes it seems that really really confusing. And what we're hoping to do today is to walk through some how tos and some small examples just to kind of relieve the anks, that's probably sitting there in the bottom of your stomach after seeing this slide. Okay, so where do I start. First you want to review the historical significance of the property and identify the character defining features. This is something you need to do for the standards for treatment of historic properties or the standards for rehabilitation. So, we have a wonderful example that Polly is going to talk about a little bit more here. It is a incredibly well done, and well preserved building in Westar. And this is a really good example of how to use all of the standards. So Polly's gonna talk about that one more. So what we did here was assess the properties, existing and required levels of accessibility per code. And we valuated the accessibility options within the preservation context. So we put all those things in front of us. Before we start the project. It is very difficult to go backwards to fix something. So you want to make sure that it's a part of your planning. Okay, so what applies to my project. As you're defining your scope of work. You know, our intention is to turn this house into a house museum. So, we're understanding the occupancy levels and change of occupancy, this, it was a residence, and now it is becoming a museum by code that means you're taking it from a residential building to a place of assembly. And when you make that change, you are required to get a building permit. And you are required to meet certain regulations that have to do with heating and electrical and life safety and accessibility. So you want to understand also, if you're making substantial alterations to your project. So if you just took a house, and turned it into a house museum, you're still required to get a building permit. Unknown Speaker 47:03 Then, if you're making substantial alterations, it changes. Even more, how much you must do to the building. So, you can switch from one to the other with very little work. As long as there's enough egress enough fire escape capacity. But if you're doing major rehab, then that kind of kicks you into another category for again meeting egress and accessibility. And so this, this last point here is really important to be wary of adding one more thing we have is call this scope creep. So we defined in number one how much work we want to do, but when you're in the field you say, Oh well, let's just do one more thing and let's just do one more thing. And every time you do one more thing. You've changed how substantial your alteration is, and you could be increasing the amount of regulation that will be applied to your building, so it is much much better to plan at the beginning. What is your scope of work. How much money do you want to spend. What are you trying to achieve with your project. So in this particular project. They wanted accessibility, they wanted to turn the building into a house museum, and then we discussed there how much further. So, one of the accommodations in this building was that we actually put the new accessible restrooms, into the garage. So they, we didn't have to disturb the house with that. So what do I do now. The access to public properties as required. Access to properties owned, open to the public is highly encouraged. Including landscapes, and access to private properties is required with substantial change, so that those are the same things I told you in the last slide. So historic structures can increase accessibility. Excuse me, while minimizing changes to significant materials and features, and this is a great example. So, what you can see here is the historic approach to the house, which we saw on the last slide, and then to the right you can see, a kind of dark gray path that goes up the landscape onto the porch and is wheelchair accessible. Now those are called Grass pavers, they look like egg crates, you turn them upside down and you put them into the, into the ground. And you can actually drive over them they're so so strong. What happens is that you plant grass seed and the grass grows through them and eventually you can't see it. So you don't disturb your landscape, but you're allowed there for wheelchair accessibility to the building. Excuse me. So our accessibility updates required. The scope of work, determines what is the dress for accessibility, unless, because ADA is a civil rights legislation lawsuits can require accessibility alterations to public buildings. Okay so what you see here is a rehab restroom in a historic courthouse. The public building, and there were lawsuits because it was hard to get around this building, There were no accessible restrooms. There was an elevator. And so the doorknobs were changed in the bathrooms were changed as a result of a lawsuit. And it's always helpful if you don't have to go that far, but you can see now that these new sinks are elevated, and there's no front, so that a wheelchair can go underneath them and the pipes are protected so that people do not get burned. Okay, so there's my little caveat on the bottom, it says, this is a discussion with regard to accessibility requirements. Please don't consider this as legal advice. So, we are architects and do the best we can to make your building accessible, and we hope to never have to have it be the result of legal action. So guided. Now, by the National Park Service Standards. The National Park Service owns many many historic structures and per the Secretary of the Interior standards modifications to be in scale with the historic property, visually compatible and reversible when possible. Unknown Speaker 52:24 So, this house has steps going up. And it was pretty much impossible to get people in the front door. So they created a bridge to the side door. That is still easily accept accessible and enters on the main level with the able bodied people. What about elevators. What do I do if I only have stairs. If your project is, is a substantial rehabilitation, then you might want to consider an elevator. But you're not always required and we'll go there in a second. Can you keep your old elevator. Yes, look at this old elevator, would you not want to keep it. The elevator sizes are regulated now by code but if you have an elevator, you are, it's very unlikely that anyone would require you to replace it. And there's a couple of questions here, you know, if we're talking mostly to house museums, this is a really important question. Does your building have more than 3000 square feet per floor, on three or more storeys. If the answer is no, then you don't do not have an elevator requirement. But we have to consider what about if we have programming on the second floor, how do I get people with disabilities there. Well maybe you don't. It is perfectly legitimate for you to write a policy that says, we have this programming on the second floor. If there is a request we will move the programming to the first floor, so that is it is accessible. That's a by the law by the accessibility requirements, that is a reasonable accommodation. So what if I need vertical transportation, there are there's three different easy ways to do it. One is with a lift. It can be limited use limited access elevator like this one that only goes up two storeys, a lift would be taking you partway up. Then there's ramps and chair lifts and all of these are accommodations that you can consider in a similar situation. None of them are ideal, but sometimes they're ideal in your smaller house museum or smaller Visitor's Center, And they are. They all work. Unknown Speaker 55:31 Okay, so other general categories to address for the Americans with Disability Act. There's communications informations and facilities signage, Unknown Speaker 55:43 use Braille. Unknown Speaker 55:46 You want things to be legible and hearing disabilities. So if you have, you want to have accommodations for people with hearing disabilities, you want to be able to park people and get them into your building. You want to address the pedestrian facilities and the public rights of way. So, those. This is another good example of how we addressed. The difference in height between the public right away the sidewalk and the interior of this historic structure we sloped, the tile, walk just ever so slightly so that there was no step up into the door. Unknown Speaker 56:39 So in your order of priorities. This is kind of to reinforce everything we've said so far, making the main or prominent public X entrance accessible, including a path to the entrance is always your first and best option. When that can't work. You saw the Park Service example where you, there was another accommodation made to get into the main floor. You want to be able to provide access to good services and programs provide accessible restrooms, And then you want to consider creating access to amenities and other secondary spaces. So these should be the priorities that you're considering within your scope of work. As you're deciding how much work you want to do. You wouldn't start by saying, Oh yeah, we have our. Well, nevermind I was gonna say, you don't want to start with number four, you want to start with getting the most people you can into your building at, and accommodating the most people, which is kind of number one. So let's, let's say that that's the most important approach. So, Polly is going to take over here, with case studies on some buildings that we've worked on some that and I'm sure that some of them will be familiar to you, and also will help you understand your own building. Unknown Speaker 58:28 Morning. So as Elizabeth said, I'm going to go over three case studies of buildings which are listed in the National Register and utilized historic tax credits for rehabilitation, these projects were required to follow the Secretary of Interior standards for rehabilitation, and they also addressed accessibility. We showed this picture earlier, this is our first case study, and this is the Faber building in Wooster, Ohio. It's that is southwest of Akron, in Northeast Ohio. This is a three storey commercial building, it was constructed in 1890, and it was recently rehabilitated using state and federal historic tax credits to house vertical runner retail store on the first floor with apartments on the second and third floors. As we evaluated this s ability, as Elizabeth talked about. Our first step was, let's review the historical significance of the property, and identify the character defining features for this building. It is part of the Wooster Public Square Historic District which was listed in 1978, and this district was an example of the late 19th and early 20th century, commercial centers in an agricultural area. Some of the character defining features are the cast iron facade. The two storey Oriel window at the entrance and the elaborate cornice. Here is the storefront before the rehabilitation, you can see it's been altered the transom and the tin ceiling is covered over here is the storefront, after the rehab it restored the arched multi light transom and the tin ceiling, which now can really show the beauty. I wanted to point out the changes to the building approach because no changes were made here. And on this side, we also were able to utilize the existing entry, but as the second point, we wanted to access the properties existing required level of accessibility. And because of that sloped entry, there was no step up at the door, so it was accessible, and also the doors met the required width of accessibility by a wheelchair, but not all specifications were met on this building, But because it was a historic structure. It was considered under Ohio chapter 34 for guidance, which means meant that every specification of chapter 34 was not met, but majorities were meant to provide accessibility. We also had to look at the interior of the building, how can customers reach the merchandise, how can they get to the sales floor. And so, within a preservation contacts, still keeping the integrity of the building. We looked at the floor plans, making sure that there was a path to the entrance and accessibility in the interior. I'm going to show you the blueprints that we use to determine how the path through the building would work and provide accessibility. As you can see there, we spoke about the prominent entrance and the ability to enter with a wheelchair, as you proceed through the store area, you can get to goods and services in the sales and checkout desk, and even as you enter the back of the building. There's the fitting rooms, and the restroom, which are both ADA accessible, there's a large door to the recovery room where runners, gather. And then the rear stairs, allow wheelchairs to exit the building through a wider door, but as you can see, they would not be able to proceed down the stairs, but in the, in the event of an emergency, a wheelchair bound person can be reached, and helped the ground level. Unknown Speaker 1:03:03 Our second case study is the Wayne agency building in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. This was a four bay, two story brick building, and the and the middle base are shown here behind these gentlemen in this photo. It was constructed in 1922, and it has businesses, dealing in mortgage loans, fire insurance and real estate. And it also was recently rehabilitated using state and federal tax credits to house, various businesses, so actually there was no change in use. And as we talked about before, the first step was, review the historical significance of the property and identify the character defining features. And I'm going to show you what the building looked like when we had to begin the project, but I'm going to go back to this historic photo because that is the critical information that helps us decide what can happen with the building, and here we were able to see that it had beautiful brick masonry walls, a tripartite wood window on the second floor, and it had storefronts on the first floor, and but the storefront, as you can see here, had been altered and would need to be reinstated based on photography, physical evidence and archival research. And so, in the 1970s This man Sarde facade alteration had been made to the two bays on the right. And I think all of us would agree that this was not an attractive alteration. What happened first was, we had to get that alteration off the building and access the properties existing level of accessibility. And at that point, we were able to see that the building an entry was not accessible. As you can see by the arrow which shows a step up. So the entry did not be at ADA standards, but in the rear of the building, actually on the second grade, there was a second floor that was accessible. Here's a picture of the final result of the storefront windows with the parapets reinstated. And I wanted to point out, you'll see that there's four retail buildings here. And if you look closely you can see that each and every door has a entrance that does not have a step. So, when we looked at these historic buildings, we had to think about how could this accessibility, be made within a preservation context. So in these blueprints, you'll see in red, that we needed to widen that door entrance, and to open it up so that it would be accessible to someone in a wheelchair, and we had a couple of options on this. We could choose to not slow the display entry walls. We could alter the location with the larger entry point. And we could also as a third option, move the entrance point further out with a 12 inch pole side required. And so what we were able to do in this picture for the young sweet shot is actually make this a wider entrance. Put a side light in, and that allows an easy access for ADA requirements. And it also made a easy to enter store with a generous space to get goods and services. And you'll also see, I'm going to show you both situations at the yum yum shop, the tile was sloped up at this salon. The entrance was actually moved, and the tile is now inside the shop, there's now a wider door that makes ADA. Unknown Speaker 1:07:31 Our final case study is the Stevenson Motor Company building, which is on Prospect Avenue in downtown Cleveland, which is about a block south from the Euclid Avenue Historic District, which was made a district in 2007. And it's also just a couple of blocks east of the lower prospect here on Historic District, which was noted in 2005. This is a three bay five storey brick building, which is constructed in 1917 as a sales show room. It had a service center, a garage and a storage facility, and it also was recently rehabilitated with historic tax credits, and also low income housing tax credits, which helped create 42 income eligible work force apartments on the upper floors, and it also featured housing on the lower floors, as all of you can imagine, this is a very attractive, building, to live in close to the downtown to walk to your job, Unknown Speaker 1:08:39 parking on the lower level. Unknown Speaker 1:08:41 Oh, I'm sorry to house again on the lower floors, good. And this was a change in use for this building. And so, um, it also had multiple funding sources, so there were a lot of accessibility requirements that had to be had to come into play on this. So, this circa 1962 photo. Oh, I'm sorry, may go back, this 1962 photo shows the west end of the three bay building. And here you can see the brick masonry walls. There were large industrial steel sash windows on the second through fifth floors, and there were storefront which flanked a garage door on the first floor and I want to point out the blue is indicating where you enter the building so that's the pedestrian building, and it did have a historic angled wall, and a door at this site. So this is a slide. During construction, as it was starting to begin, and this is where you can see that the infields storefronts and garage bays and top for Windows, all needed to be addressed in this restoration. Here's a picture as construction was underway, you're starting to see that the industrial sashes for the windows were rapidly replicated with insulated glass units for the comfort of apartment residents, and at the bottom, we reinstated storefronts, and the garage door. Here's a blueprint that shows the existing floor plan at the pedestrian entry, and you can see that it was pretty tight and not wide enough for ADA requirements, and the NSI noted because of the funding sources. It also was subject to meeting, universal design requirements and HUDs which is the HUD, Housing, and Urban Development's code 504. In addition to the Ohio building code and Anssi standards in the building code. So you'll see what we did here. Here's the first picture. Here's the second picture, we had to look within the preservation context of how we could open up that entry. So by reinstating that pedestrian entry and re storing actually the original entry, and by moving the door and sloping the floor, we were able to provide accessible ABA options at the entrance. And then also, one other thing that had to be taken into account was the apartment dwellers had to be able to reach the upper floors, and so there was an car elevator that was converted to a passenger elevator. So you'll see that this building now has accommodated a wider entry with a sidelight like we had done on some of the earlier case studies, and that the interior of the 42 income eligible partners offer close proximity to downtown Cleveland and followed the requirements of the multiple codes. Instead summary. I want to make sure that you understand that there's resources available, and we've made some links here in this presentation available to you, and we want to make sure that we just summarize that, what we hoped we communicated today was that you can address ADA concerns by making the public entrance, accessible for the public, you can provide access to the goods, services and programs within your building, and you can provide access to the restroom facilities, and create access to other amenities and secondary spaces. And these case studies today, illustrate how the, how buildings listed on the National Register, or other very important historic properties can be rehabbed successfully following both the Secretary of the Interior standards for rehabilitation, preserving the character defining features and meeting, accessibility requirements, we're going to end on this note, because we know that sometimes the single biggest problem with communication is illusion that we've communicated well and then it's taken place, and we want to make sure that we leave enough time to answer questions because this is a pretty complicated and confusing topic, but we'd like to make it simple today, with opening up the time for questions. Unknown Speaker 1:14:00 We have one question so far. How do historic tax credits work if your organization is a nonprofit and doesn't pay property or income taxes. Unknown Speaker 1:14:09 Uh huh, I wonder if that question would come up, it would probably take me more than 15 minutes to explain how that works, but it depends a little bit on. First of all it depends on how much you're going to invest. So for instance if you are only investing $100,000 It's not worth considering. But if you're investing $3 million. It is definitely worth considering. So you, in essence, form a partnership with a for profit entity who will take the tax credits and give you cash in its place. So that's a very short answer to a very complicated question, but it is possible, and it is worthy of consideration. If you have a substantial rehab. And if that's not enough, ask more questions and I'll see if I can't get to the point. Unknown Speaker 1:15:17 And it's also important to remember that there's different funding sources, and there are some funding sources specifically for a nonprofit. There's a National Trust, grant for sacred spaces would be one example that a nonprofit could utilize, and there's other types of grants that are available at both state and federal levels that do apply to nonprofits. Unknown Speaker 1:15:50 Yes, and in 1976 when we celebrated our bicentennial. There were, there was lots and lots of money available for grants for small properties and large properties, and most of that kind of funding has dried up. So, it's important to address every possibility for how you're funding your project. Unknown Speaker 1:16:20 We have another question, if you are adding a new addition to a historic house museum. Do you need to completely update the existing building, which is partially accepted accessible. Unknown Speaker 1:16:30 The short answer is no. Okay, so it. If you're putting an addition on the addition will have to be to code, and perhaps the connection, and you always have to be able to show that you can get people out which is egress life safety, but if you are not altering the existing building, then you don't have to bring everything in the historic structure, up, up to code, and that's in chapter 34 So make sure you think that's another reason it's really just really important to plan and and to watch your scope creep. Unknown Speaker 1:17:19 Do you have any examples of a community rallying behind rehabilitating their historic buildings. Unknown Speaker 1:17:30 Sure. Have I ever thrown myself in front of a bulldozer No, but we have. We have lots of, well, let me give you one example, I live in Akron and Akron Civic Theatre. Let's see probably 20 years ago, there was a developer that wanted to create a multiplex probably half a dozen blocks away from the Civic Theater, and the Civic Theater needed a lot of work so he was going to buy the Civic Theater, and cut it up and use the pieces to decorate his multiplex. Right now the Civic Theatre sits on Main Street is fully operational and fully restored, because the community got behind it. Unknown Speaker 1:18:22 I think another really good example that one of our colleagues has been intimately involved with, and Elizabeth also was the restoration of Cuyahoga Falls downtown. I live very close by Cuyahoga Falls and have been able to watch the transition of that community. It was a community that in the 70s and 80s actually closed off their downtown Main Street. And so when we showed you the favourability in the examples there. Oftentimes were just empty storefronts, because the community had, although they thought it was a good idea. They had made parking garages and you had to walk through the parking garages to get down to any of the retail or restaurants, or whatever was down there. There's also an art center, and it was very difficult to get into any of what was in downtown Cuyahoga Falls. So the community and the community leaders, rallied around the idea of opening up the downtown thoroughfare, and since then it has just propelled the community to re embrace its downtown, and I live nearby, and on a regular Weekday and Weekend. I have a hard time finding parking because there's so many people going downtown and they are just enjoying it. They reinstated parking in front of the, the retail stores. So now it is just so vibrant and the housing around Cuyahoga Falls and the surrounding communities has increased in value, the economic benefits to Cuyahoga Falls are numerous. There are I think five restaurants, there's the Art Center. Multiple retail stores, and the newest to retail establishments have been a butcher, with a deli, that has been embraced to bring, you know, easy to pick up food, and we've also seen the restoration of a historic theater to be a site where there's different types of games, and also food at that location. Unknown Speaker 1:20:54 We have a comment from Andy van Hoff. One of the projects at the Ohio History fund funds is creating ADA access to buildings on the National Register and the deadline for this year pass but keep an eye out for 2022. And another question, do you conduct facilities space utilization studies for historic buildings and if so, what is your contact information. Unknown Speaker 1:21:19 Yeah, yes that's yes, yes, and yes, we do conduct studies we do lots of studies for people that will discuss the. It can be as simple as a one time visit and say well we you should think about this or we can give them an entire study for the building on what should be done and what should be considered. And I think that Alice, Sloane is going to talk a little bit about that this afternoon, but we do studies for accessibility for conditions for schematic design to rehab. And how do you find us. You can find Polly at p Blum DB L O M at perspective com, that's prfpctus.com. And I'm Elizabeth Murphy So my initials are my email is E Murphy at perspectives, calm. Unknown Speaker 1:22:34 Yeah, we'd love to talk to you about your project and even if you just have some general questions of how a prior even needs to start I know sometimes it can be overwhelming if you haven't worked with an architectural firm, and understand who all would be involved in helping you make decisions, we'll be happy to take a little bit of time to talk about that with you. Unknown Speaker 1:22:56 We can we can also connect you to tax credit, attorneys and things like that, that could give you advice on whether or not it's worth it for you to pursue tax credits. Unknown Speaker 1:23:13 We have a second comment from Andy, there may be funding through from the state of Ohio via the Ohio facilities Construction Commission as well. Unknown Speaker 1:23:22 Yeah, yeah, So we have a couple of clients that use that funding, and I and and it's important to note that if you're creative you can combine these sources of funding, and, and most of them do have to be matched. So you do have to have skin in the game. Unknown Speaker 1:23:42 I just want to put a word out for the state of Ohio. We are so fortunate as historic preservation is to live in the state of Ohio. We have some of the top. The top people in Ohio, working with the National Park Service, to make sure that we're restoring our communities and restoring our historic properties, and Ohio usually rates in the top three in terms of awarding historic tax credits, but it trickles down to other areas and other types of funds so the attitude is great here. We are a vibrant state that really respects our historic fabric, and you can see it when you go from urban centers to small communities. Unknown Speaker 1:24:32 And, and I would like to echo Polly's accolades for the Ohio Historic Preservation Office. They are very skilled. Unknown Speaker 1:24:45 And then, that's the handler mentioned that prospectus will also be attending the sponsor event at 1230 today if anyone would like to ask any additional questions. Unknown Speaker 1:24:55 Yes sir. Great, great. Unknown Speaker 1:24:58 I think that's all the questions that we have so far so oh one more came in, sorry. Um, our museum has no bathrooms facilities for the public, um, I've been told the plan is in the works, but the Oh HC representatives that it may not happen in my lifetime, do you have any idea of how to get this project moving in the near future. Unknown Speaker 1:25:20 Oh goodness, yeah that's a rough one because you really, you really need bathroom facilities. So, so, I showed you this myth or house, and I told you that we put bathrooms in the garage, and it made it. The garage was, you know, restored and cleaned and everything and then we actually constructed, concrete, black box. Inside the garage, so everything was clean and the hose double and everything else. And those restroom facilities can also, and several of our, not for profits, do this, they make their restrooms accessible to people on walking paths for. So if there are restrooms or outside, then it's very helpful, but you really do need to consider some kind of restroom, and it doesn't have to be real elaborate. It just has to be washable. Unknown Speaker 1:26:31 And I think to Elizabeth's point. More often than not, it does work pretty well to have the restrooms or even sometimes a visitor center outside of a historic house museum. I think that's, it's a very good way to organize tours and not be in the museum and but have some other services available, you know, outside and and be ADA accessible. Unknown Speaker 1:27:07 And if you're considering your building from a building code perspective, there's no requirement to have the restroom inside your historic house, it can be outside, it needs to be within 500 feet, or something like that so. So if there's more than one building on a property, you can share a facility, or, you know, and do remember that collaboration is a good thing. So if there's other properties nearby and you can share facilities or things like that. Get your get your ideas hat on and think outside the box. Unknown Speaker 1:27:51 Andy bearhawk asked if it was on the national register and if it is he listed the website where you can find his contact information to reach out to him as well. Unknown Speaker 1:28:01 Very good. Thanks, Sandy. Unknown Speaker 1:28:08 And I think that may be all of the questions we have for today. So I want to thank everyone, and thank our presenters for a wonderful presentation. Unknown Speaker 1:28:19 Thanks so much. We really enjoyed this. Unknown Speaker 1:28:22 Yes, and we're looking forward to being able to see your faces. Unknown Speaker 1:28:28 Thank you. Unknown Speaker 1:28:31 Have a good day. Transcribed by https://otter.ai