Constructing a Kirkbride
Completed in 1885 after only two years of construction, 40-foot-wide, ¼-mile-long Building 50 was the product of a short-lived — if popular at the time — approach to mental health care advocated by psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride. Kirkbride believed that beauty was therapy, and that the building form of an institution was itself curative. His treatise on hospital design greatly influenced the design of hospitals for the mentally ill. Constructed during the late 1800s, they were known as “Kirkbride-plan hospitals” (see “Seeking Asylum?” below). The Northern Michigan Asylum, renamed the Traverse City Regional Psychiatric Hospital because of the growing association of “asylum” with cruel treatments like lobotomies and electro-shock therapy, was no exception.
“Kirkbrides are different from other asylums [in that] they’re long and linear. That’s the prominent architectural masterpiece of the whole development,” Ray Minervini explains. Building 50’s echelon, or “stepped,” shape separated female patients in the north wing from male patients in the south wing and created light and ventilation for each building segment, which was considered therapeutic for patients. Its elaborate Victorian-Italianate architecture and picturesque grounds also reflected the philosophy that aesthetic beauty heals.
At 50 feet up to the eaves, constructed of brick and 600-pound limestone slabs without any power equipment, it’s no wonder Minervini marvels at Building 50’s construction. “It’s hard for me to comprehend. We have all the high-tech equipment and the manpower, and it takes us a year to fix up only one segment of the building!” Both interior and exterior walls of Building 50 are five bricks wide and laid side by side; it’s estimated that more than 15 million bricks were used in its construction.
Finding Funding
Restoring any historical building requires a larger investment of time and money than remodeling a non-historical structure. “To level the playing field,” Ray Minervini says, “you need to create as many entitlements as possible.”
The Minervinis have established several entitlements for their project, making their personal investment less of a burden and the property more attractive to prospective buyers and tenants.
The Village received two separate $1 million Brownfield Redevelopment grants from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to remove lead paint and asbestos from the site.
Seventy-five percent of The Village is located within a Michigan Renaissance Zone — the only one in the region. Village residents and businesses pay virtually no state or local taxes.
Rehabilitation tax credits offered through the National Park Service and State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) allow the Minervinis as owners and other for-profit entities in The Village to receive a 20% federal tax credit and a 5% Michigan tax credit because the building is a certified historic structure and is being restored according to guidelines set by the SHPO.
Because entitlements vary by state, Ray Minervini recommends meeting with a technical consultant to understand what entitlements may be available for your project. The D.C.-based Environmental Law Institute maintains a database of environmental consultants at www.brownfieldscenter.org/big/searchdatabase.cfm
Minervini also suggests that restorers:
- Find another contractor who has done a similar preservation project and understands how to restore without jeopardizing qualification for tax credits.
- Educate your contractors and subcontractors. “Each one should be aware of the preservation guidelines specific to their trade.”
- Work with an architect who is familiar with the historic tax credit restoration guidelines. The Minervinis’ in-house architect ensures construction adheres to the guidelines.
Seeking Asylum?
At least a dozen Kirkbride asylums across the country have already been destroyed. But plenty of opportunities exist to save those that are abandoned or slated for destruction.
“It’s really a tragedy that so many of these spectacularly beautiful buildings are going to be demolished,” Ray Minervini says. “The building stock and infrastructure are already here.”
Minervini says he has the formula for restoring a Kirkbride asylum:
- Create a mixed-use environment. “That’s what all the Kirkbrides were built on,” he says.
- Then, put people back into the building.
- “That’s what creates life in the building,” he says.
Resources
Web sites
- Kirkbride photos and updates: www.kirkbridebuildings.com
- Historic tax credit information: www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/tax/brochure1.htm
- State historic preservation offices: www.cr.nps.gov/nr/shpolist.htm
- Trade-specific historic preservation guidelines: www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/presbhom.htm
Books
- How Buildings Learn: What happens after they’re built, by Stewart Brand.
- “An absolute must-read for anyone who is restoring a building,” Ray Minervini says.
- The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Archeology and Historic Preservation, by the National Park Service.