It’s been a busy spring for 4/1, and the hits just keep coming. As of today we bid a fond adieu to Emily, who has left for a shiny new job with the Main Street Center, part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in far-away Chicago. I am extremely proud of her and grateful that she kept the lights on during my maternity leave.
As of today, I’m is back in the office and catching up on all the action that happened this spring. New client appointments will be scheduled over the next few weeks, and I’m circling back to make contact with all of Emily’s open projects. As always, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to shoot 4/1 an email.
Art provided by S, age 7. (Only a designer’s kid would draw a row of houses complete with gable vents.)
All sorts of things are underway here at 4/1, and we are looking forward to the spring after some terrific winter weather. Projects are currently under construction in Watts-Hillandale, Trinity Park, Old North Durham, Duke Forest, and all the way out in Oxford. We are doing house research and certificates of appropriateness all over too, thanks to the work of Emily (stay tuned for ways to research your own house’s history in an upcoming post). And at some point we will do a major update of the portfolio page to show some of the new work that’s wrapped in the past year.
Also on the drawing board is Sara’s second child, due in mid-March. While she’s away on maternity leave, please direct all communication to Emily via the contact info on the sidebar. Sometime in early June, Sara will be back at her desk and ready to start new design projects – don’t hesitate to get in touch in the meantime with anything you may need.
4/1 Design has some good news and some bad news. As it’s always best to lead with the bad news, here it is:
As you may already know, the State Tax Credit Program is sunsetting (read: ending) at the end of this year. We have meet with the folks at the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and, while nothing is in writing yet, we want to pass on what we’ve learned.
For those of you who are already receiving tax credits, this will not change anything for you – you’re grandfathered in.
For those of you with open applications: you may complete your project after the end of the year, but only those expenses paid before Jan. 1, 2015 are eligible. You must still follow the standard for work done after the new year for your whole project to be eligible.
Any materials purchased before the end of the year are eligible, even if they’re installed after the the new year.
Part B paperwork does not need to be submitted by the end of the year – it can be submitted whenever the work is complete, or when you chose to close the tax credit application (eg. anytime after the new year that all the purchased materials are installed and pre-paid work have been completed). That said, if you would like to receive your Part B acceptance before tax day in April, we would like to send them to the SHPO by February 15, 2015.
The tax credit program is over as of Jan. 1, 2015. No ifs, ands, or buts. We are hopeful that a similar historic preservation incentive will be introduced into the legislature, but we have no guarantees. If you would like to stay informed about potential new incentives, I highly recommend you become a member of Preservation North Carolina, who is leading the charge.
If you or a neighbor has done a lot of work recently to a house in the historic district, there is still time to put in a new application. But make sure to get in touch soon, as time is fleeting!
Here’s the SHPO’s notice about the sunset, so you can hear it from the horse’s mouth.
Now for the good news—the 4/1 Design team has doubled! Allow me to introduce you to Emily Wallrath Schmidt, who joined 4/1 this summer as a preservation specialist and all-around girl friday. She is focusing mostly on tax credit applications and Certificates of Appropriateness for the moment, but also does House Histories and Historic Plaque Marker applications. Emily has been in the area since last winter, doing a lot of volunteer work with Preservation Durham, and previously spent time with the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association, the Central Park Conservancy in NYC, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology in Philadelphia. She also claims some knowledge of Turkish, if any of you would like to test her on that and report back? Her email address is simply Emily@fouroverone.com, and I know you will like her as much as I do.
Emily and Sara at North Carolina Modernist Houses’ Mod Party in October 2014. I may have styled my hair in a beehive for the occasion.
It has been really far too long since I’ve posted, which I blame on being wonderously busy. 4/1 has projects wrapped up and awaiting a photo shoot, ones in the final throes of punch list, a few in construction right this instant, and a long list of those in design. With all the design work, most of the preservation tax credit work has been residential as well, but every so often a commercial, income-producing tax application pops up too. And it’s then I get to go into spaces like this – so lovely and decrepit, I just had to share.
(I must admit, half the reason I got into this line of work was my fascination with these crumbling spaces. It’s going to be amazing once it’s redone, of course, and is just dripping with potential – but all of this is gorgeous too.)
