Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Boulder City planner stresses accuracy for town’s historic district

Boulder City

History hasn’t always been kind to Boulder City’s historic district.

Specifically, the ’70s weren’t kind to its historic downtown.

When Boulder City was built in 1931, city planner Saco DeBoer set out design standards for commercial buildings — a vaguely southwestern style DeBoer called Modernistic Pueblo Revival. They were enforced as long as Sims Ely ran the town for the federal government.

Once Ely left in 1941, however, the style, with its arcaded facades and stucco exteriors, relaxed a bit, said architect Alan Stromberg, a member of Boulder City’s Historic Preservation Committee. Buildings either reflected national styles or were just functional, he said.

Then came the 1970s and 1980s, and three buildings broke all the important rules, Stromberg notes in a report on the commercial district. Two had parking lots added in front of the buildings and one was constructed as a two-story structure with no shade over the sidewalk.

The Boulder City Historic Preservation Committee is writing guidelines for the commercial buildings in the historic district, and they hope that by pointing out such errors, property owners in the future will try to avoid them, Stromberg said.

Stromberg presented the committee his recommendations earlier this week for a flier that will show what works and what does not in downtown Boulder City.

The other sad legacy of the ’70s, he notes: Mansard roofing. For non-architects, it’s a five-foot-deep border of Spanish tile around the top of a building that has a flat roof. It was a cheap way to obtain look of tile without using it on the whole roof, he said.

It is one of several no-nos the proposed flier points out as “noncontributing elements” in the historic district. Others include abandoned signs, exposed wiring, exposed equipment on rooftops and front parking.

“Contributing elements” include such things as unique signs, divided windows, indirect lighting, interesting details on buildings, and canvas awnings, canopies, arcades or other elements that provide shade to the sidewalk.

The flier still has a ways to go before it becomes official. It is being revised before the committee holds an open house to get public input, after which it could be changed again. The City Council will have the final say.

The idea is, through public education, to keep downtown as faithful to the original plan as possible, the committee says.

The best example of commercial design as conceived by DeBoer, Stromberg said, is the Boulder Theater building and the shops attached to it, at 1225 Arizona St. The stucco structure includes an arched arcade all along the front of the building and interesting details.

The worst example: the Wells Fargo building, 412 Nevada Way. It has a parking lot in front between two buildings that border the sidewalk, creating an awkward gap. And it has that mansard roofing. Go figure.

But even a facade as unique as the Coffee Cup, with its black wood sign decorated with boat propellers and surfing gear, meets the guidelines, they are so flexible, Stromberg said.

The idea is not to embarrass owners of buildings that did it wrong, Stromberg said. They might not have known any better.

“Often people do remodeling and replacing without thinking about it,” he said.

Since he moved to Boulder City in 1977, Stromberg has been making it his business to bring some of the historic origins back to downtown. He designed the building that now holds the Chamber of Commerce and the City Center building across the street, both stucco buildings with arched walkways shading the sidewalk.

One of his most recent projects, the Nevada Title building on Hotel Plaza, is a good example of a property owner just not knowing any better, he said.

Photos show the original building had black carrara glass along the bottom of its facade, Stromberg said. The previous owner got rid of the expensive glass and replaced it with stucco, he said.

Now the unique glass is too expensive to replace, so he has gone with black granite to mimic the look.

“A lot of things were destroyed that should not have been,” he said.

The hope is to get property owners to think twice before something like that happens again, he said.

“Our goal is to raise public awareness,” Stromberg said, “to let property owners know there’s something to look at before they start tearing things apart.”

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