Industry
Part of How to Read Roadside Architecture from the Road
Roadside architecture businesses: repair before replacing
Roadside architecture businesses can protect original character with repairs to windows, neon and stucco, water control and careful storefront maintenance.
What to take away
- Cost-share grant rounds may support this work, but availability and terms depend on the program.
- The cheapest preservation decision is usually to repair rather than replace, and it is usually also the right one.
- Storefront and sign decisions carry more weight than anything else on a small commercial building.
- Document what you have before you change it. Photographs cost nothing and settle arguments later.
For roadside architecture businesses, most damage is not done by developers. It is done incrementally, by owners doing reasonable maintenance with the materials a supplier had in stock.
None of that is bad faith. It is what happens when nobody told the owner that the thing they are about to remove was the significant part.
There is money for this
Some funding is available to private businesses in historic buildings, but programs differ by place and cycle. The National Park Service's Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program has offered cost-share grants along the corridor. Qualifying income-producing historic properties may also be eligible for the federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit; eligibility depends on the property and proposed work.
Past award announcements from the National Park Service's Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, including its cost-share grant awards, show what the program has funded: sign restoration, roof repairs, window work, and facade stabilization on small commercial properties. The 2019 awards, for example, went to window restoration at the privately owned Monterey Motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the neon sign and swimming pool at the Hill Top Motel in Kingman, Arizona, and to exterior brick tuck pointing at the Williams' Store in Riverton, Kansas. Treat those awards as examples, not confirmation that a grant round is currently open. Check with the National Park Service for current availability, application forms, deadlines, matching requirements, and eligibility.
Cost-share means you contribute too, so it is not free money. Match requirements vary by program and award, so confirm them before budgeting.
Check what exists for your state as well. State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) can explain state programs and eligibility. For the federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, the SHPO and National Park Service handle certification review for qualifying projects.
Repair beats replacement, and it is usually cheaper
The instinct when something fails is to replace the whole element. On an older building, repair is frequently cheaper and always less destructive.
A wooden window with rotten sills usually needs new sills, not a new window. A neon sign with dead tubing needs the tubing remade, not the sign replaced. A cracked stucco panel needs a patch matched to the original mix, not a rendering of the whole elevation.
Get a second opinion from someone who works on old buildings specifically before accepting a replacement quote. Their advice frequently costs less than the work you were about to commission.
The storefront is where the value sits
For a small commercial building, the ground floor front carries most of its character and takes most of the abuse. It is also where the least sympathetic changes get made, because it is what an owner touches when trade is slow.
The National Park Service's Preservation Brief 11, Rehabilitating Historic Storefronts, is written for exactly this situation, and it is unusually practical: what to keep, what can be changed, and how to design something new that does not fight the building.
If you read one document before your next renovation, read that one.
The cheap things that help most
- Keep the sign lit. A dark sign reads as a closed business and deteriorates faster.
- Fix water first. Gutters, flashing and drainage prevent more damage than any other spending.
- Repaint rather than reclad. Paint is reversible; cladding is not.
- Keep original doors and windows working rather than replacing them.
- Photograph everything before you change it.
- Keep removed original elements in storage rather than skipping them. Owners regret this more than anything else.
Talk to your neighbors
A single restored building on a strip of altered ones is a curiosity. Three together is a destination.
Coordinating with neighboring businesses on signage, lighting and opening hours costs nothing and does more for footfall than any individual restoration. It also makes a grant application stronger, because funders prefer projects that lift a corridor rather than one property.
Tell people what you have
Owners routinely underestimate how much visitors care. Put the building's history on your website, your menu, or a card at the desk. Say what year it was built, what has been restored and what is original.
It brings in the visitors who came for exactly that, and it makes the case internally when somebody proposes replacing the sign with something cheaper.
How visitors read these buildings is set out in the field guide, and where travelers choose to stay explains what they are looking for when they book.
