Major building, public and private are changing use and ownership dramatically in almost very city I come across.
Banks are becoming hotels,
Small banks and monumental banking rooms in large bank buildings become restaurants,
In Cleveland the 1929 Board of Education Bldg will become a Drury Inn.
Office buildings are becoming apartment buildings
In Cincinnati the former Federal Reserve branch Bldg is now an apartment building
In Pittsburgh the former Federal Reserve Bldg (once an Art Deco masterpiece) will become a Drury Inn.
Even in my home town of Medina Ohio the elegant Savings Deposit Bank is now a restaurant
In Berkeley CA the USPS is trying to sell the very fine downtown main post office to a developer (who happens to be Nancy Pelosi's well healed husband.) The public is fighting this.
Some of these are creative reuses of existing buildings that shouldn't be torn down and entirely commendable.
Others may be more about penny pinching (the Cleveland School Board Bldg) Excessive consolidation of the banking industry is another reason. This is beneficial to stock holders in the short run but detrimental to cities and the soundness of the banking system...but this is what the powerful banking sector demands and has bought from Congress.
Other government entities are abandoning historic buildings because we Americans starve Fed, State, Local and school districts of tax funds because about half of voters demand ever lower taxes at all times. (Good for the rich bad for everyone else.)
And then there is the business innovation trend in favor of getting out of the property management business and selling corporate campuses bank buildings etc to real estate development management companies. (Good for business bad for everyone else.)
I suspect the need to run in a lean and businesslike manner and liquidating classic buildings is the Federal Reserve's motivation (A decision that particularly irks me. i.e. Pittsburgh.) The fact that The Federal Reserve creates money and its operating budget is really a defensive gesture at accountability to mollify anti-Fed crackpots. Fed bankers have no understanding of the value of historic buildings and cultural properties and feel no sense of accountability in that regard.
In some cases it seems that gov and institutional leaders like new and don't like old facilities.
In addition to the loss or compromise of historic buildings all too many building in urban environments in America carry any of their original meaning. All is just marketable space, a commodity, at the mercy of business preferences.
In Ohio qualifying for state historic building tax credits is the game, but it seems there are few standards for preservation that must be adhered to in these deals. as usual we have to give away more tax money and bribe business to act in a way that is not entirely detrimental to cities. All in all I suspect business, as well as government leaders would rather move to green field sites as so much business other private and government entities have moved from Detroit toward Ann Arbor.
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