Style and substance

They may provide a window to the world, but when it comes to older buildings those choosing glass, sills and shutters hardly have it made in the shade.

Sidney's Historic Preservation Board worked to decide what sort of windows fit their vision and guidelines for downtown Sidney at yesterday's meeting.

All businesses within the national register historic district must submit an application to the board for a certificate of approval before making changes to the facade of their building. There were three window replacement requests in front of the board.

Board member Casey Cortney thought business owners should consider whether or not their windows actually need to be replaced and first attempt to repair them. Other board members suggested that business owners try replacing the glass in the windows and leaving the original frame. Replacing the glass is called re-glazing.

"If you try to go back and re-glaze, it's gonna be a maintenance issue forever," said board member Rich Phillips.

Re-glazing is not always the most energy efficient thing to do, added board member Greg Huck. "As a business owner, you're trying to get some efficiency out of these windows."

Cortney urged the board to try to come to a decision about what sort of windows they will approve to go along with their guidelines. The board also discussed a desire to make sure each building downtown is unique, to ensure an historically accurate look.

"We shouldn't assume every window downtown should be dark bronze," board member Meagan Smuin pointed out.

Board member Kay Hicks reminded the board that they can't dictate the color of a building, so they also can't dictate the color of window frames, either.

"If that's what they want, we can't say no you can't have that because we don't want everything the same," board member John Phillips said.

Downtown business owners are supposed to get the board's approval to make sure their renovations are historically accurate but other decisions are left up to the business owner.

"The idea in a historic building is that when we have the opportunity to paint some wood, people would've taken the opportunity to make their building stand out," Smuin said. "When we go through and replace everything with dark bronze it's kind of ruining that historic character."

Smuin urged the board not to approve replacement windows that don't match the historic window that was originally in place. There are a long list of guidelines that must be followed, especially when the business is requesting grant money for their project.

"As a board, we're required to follow these guidelines because this money has been earmarked for historic preservation and these are the Sidney guidelines," Smuin explained.

The board's guidelines say that when replacing windows, the owner must use those that match the historic ones in size, shape, materials and overall appearance.

"If you take out a historic, wood window and you put in just a vinyl window, that's not historic preservation," Smuin said. "I think if we're funding the project, it needs to be historic preservation. The funds aren't set aside just to help people replace their windows. The funds were set aside to help maintain the historic character of the buildings."

Some business owners run into problems with this because many of the windows in historic Sidney buildings aren't original. The board decided that each building should be taken on a case by case basis.

"Are we trying to go back a hundred years in technology, just for the sake of going back to a wooden window, or are we just trying to preserve an overall appearance of a historic, downtown Sidney," Rich Phillips said. "Because I think that's what we should be following. I don't care if it's wood or wood-clad or whatever, as long as it appears to be historically correct."

Most board members agreed that overall appearance was what mattered more than the materials that composed the windows.

"If they look identical to what's there and the materials aren't sub standard, so it's not just the cheap vinyl windows, I'm ok with approving funds for that," Smuin said.

Wendy Pemberton, the owner of Della's and Get-away Comics and Collectibles attended the meeting to show the board her plans to replace the upper windows in her building and to paint the lower portion including the trim.

"I want to clean up the building," Pemberton said.

The board approved her project. Other projects approved at the meeting included a new sign at the fine arts center, new second floor windows in Steffen Rentals and building repair and new windows at 827 10th Avenue. The board also approved the reimbursement of funds to Financial Partners, LLC for projects already completed.

The group then discussed whether or not they should ever use historic preservation funds to help replace sidewalks in front of historic businesses.

"I mean that'd be great to have an all new sidewalk out front, but I don't think it's right for me to ask the historic preservation board to pay for my sidewalk," Huck said. "My argument would be, you're opening a can of worms and everyone's gonna want their sidewalk replaced."