John Curley presenting to Naperville Preservation, Naperville, IL. Photo by Al Watts, January 24, 2024.
Historic preservation is commonly perceived as uncertain, unpredictable, and irrational. Many historic structures are either vacant or poorly maintained because the costs of rehabilitation that meet current building codes are considered expensive and onerous. These perceptions stifle economic development in historic districts and put historic structures at risk of demolition by neglect. John Curley AIA, CBCO, CFM, Chief Development Services for the City of Aurora explained at a presentation on January 24, 2024, hosted by Naperville Preservation: “If we do not come up with flexible [building] codes that are predictable, redevelopment will not happen.”
The International Building Code (IBC) is used by nearly every municipality to evaluate construction projects. Design professionals and city building departments use the IBC to ensure buildings are designed and built safely. The IBC is written for new construction and therefore has little guidance on how an existing building can be brought up to code without significant changes and expense to it. This is particularly challenging for historic buildings for which things such as installing a sprinkler system can be nearly impossible—or cost-prohibitive.
Trying to make a historic building fit the requirements for new construction under the IBC is exactly as historic preservation is perceived: uncertain, unpredictable, and irrational. For redevelopment to occur, Curley argued, “We need to limit uncertainties and facilitate cooperation with developers.” A different building code, the International Existing Building Code (IEBC), Curley has found, provides the necessary flexibility to redevelop historic buildings with certainty, predictability, and rationality.
“The International Existing Building Code covers repair, alteration, addition, and change of occupancy for existing buildings and historic buildings, while achieving appropriate levels of safety without requiring full compliance with the new construction requirements contained in the other I-Codes.”
With IEBC’s Performance Method, each building is evaluated individually to determine the best scenario for the building that is also just as safe as new construction would be under the IBC.[1] Evaluating twenty-one components of building safety, the IEBC allows some components to be greater than the minimum requirements to compensate for other components that are less than the minimum. The key to this tool is that the aggregate of these components is equal to or greater than the minimum requirements. For example, additional means of egress, a higher quality fire alarm, and shorter travel distances to exits could make the installation of an expensive fire suppression system unnecessary through the give-and-take formula of the IEBC’s Performance Method. Using these tools has proved to be a significant driver of redevelopment for Aurora, asserted Curley.
Aurora Silverplate Building. Photo from Google Maps, 2022.
One example is the Aurora Silverplate Building (now Charlie’s Silver Spoon Creamery) at 5 E. Downer Place in Aurora. The three-story building was very narrow with only about 1,300 sq. ft. per floor. Requiring expensive fire suppression for the building was one of the reasons the building sat vacant for decades. Using the tools in the IEBC allowed the building to make other more affordable adjustments to meet safety standards, stimulating its rehabilitation.
While the IEBC provides better solutions for historic structures, there are some reasons few city building departments use them. For one thing, calculating the 21 components is complicated and there is not yet a simple software program to input data into and get quick results. Secondly, there is no certification process for the IEBC like there is for IBC. Design professionals often are unaware of IEBC and design a historic building to IBC standards, which can cause the costs to be unnecessarily high. Third, city staff and local fire departments are not as familiar with IEBC as they are with IBC hindering recommendations to developers that could lower their redevelopment costs.
The solution to these obstacles is education. Cities, local fire departments, and developers need to be made aware of the IEBC’s Performance Method to solve difficult challenges with the rehabilitation of historic structures. John Curley of Aurora is an outstanding champion of IEBC and has given presentations, such as the one last week for Naperville Preservation, as well as longer workshops to teach city staff and fire departments how the IBEC’s Performance Method tools can be used. Though they do not solve all challenges with old buildings, these tools can make rehabilitation and economic development possible that would not happen otherwise.
You can see John Curley’s presentation here.
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[1] “2021 International Existing Building Code (IEBC),” International Code Council, accessed January 31, 2024, https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IEBC2021P2.