RALEIGH, N.C — Wake Forest has been awarded a 2019 federal Historic Preservation Fund grant for Certified Local Governments from the National Park Service, administered by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (HPO) of the Office of Archives and History.
The grant award is $7,500, and the Town of Wake Forest has contributed $5,000 for a total project budget of $12,500. The funds will be used to survey historic resources built between 1958 and 1975. (The most recent architectural survey, completed in 2008, dealt with historic resources from 1957 and earlier.) The town has hired hmwPreservation, a Durham, North Carolina-based cultural resources consulting firm, to complete the project. Heather Slane, principal of the firm, is the Project Manager.
Scheduled for completion in fall 2020, the project involves a survey of approximately 125 buildings built during the time period under study. Ms. Slane will introduce the project at a public kickoff meeting Feb. 12, 6:30 p.m. at the regularly scheduled Historic Preservation Commission meeting at Town Hall, 301 S. Brooks St., Wake Forest.
Ms. Slane will return to Wake Forest between February and July 2020 to conduct fieldwork. She also will meet with representatives of the town and local historians. In addition to documenting properties with photographs, written descriptions, and oral and archival history, Ms. Slane will identify properties that appear to be potentially eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, either individually or as districts, and thus potentially eligible for state and federal tax credits for certified historic rehabilitation. The project will culminate in a brief final report that analyzes the history and development of Wake Forest between 1958 and 1975.
At the conclusion of the project, the HPO will share the digital files with the municipal government. Public access to the information will be available through HPOWEB, the HPO’s geographic information system, which is accessible online at http://gis.ncdcr.gov/hpoweb/. The survey material will facilitate the environmental review necessary for state and federal undertakings and will aid in planning for future economic and community development projects. Survey products also will be useful for the continued development of heritage tourism programs in Wake Forest.
For more information on the architectural survey, contact Elizabeth C. King, Architectural Survey Coordinator for the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, at elizabeth.king@ncdcr.gov or 919-814-6580, or Michelle Michael, Senior Planner for the Town of Wake Forest, at mmichael@wakeforestnc.gov or 919-435-9516.
About the State Historic Preservation Office
In North Carolina, the State Historic Preservation Office (HPO) is an agency of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Kevin Cherry, the department's Deputy Secretary of Archives and History, is North Carolina's State Historic Preservation Officer. The HPO carries out state and federal preservation programs that assist private citizens, non-profit institutions, local governments, and agencies of state and federal government in the identification, evaluation, protection, and enhancement of properties significant in North Carolina’s history and archaeology. The HPO oversees the statewide architectural survey; administers the National Register of Historic Places for North Carolina properties; conducts environmental review of state and federal actions affecting historic and archaeological properties; provides technical assistance to owners in the restoration of historic properties, including those owners seeking state and federal rehabilitation income tax credits; provides grant assistance for historic preservation projects; provides technical assistance to local preservation commissions; and provides historic preservation education, including publication of preservation plan updates and the HPO newsletter, Worth Saving (http://www.hpo.ncdcr.gov/newsletter/newsletter.htm).