Despite economic adversity, state preservationists plan ahead

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By KIRSTEN RINTELMANN
Capital News Service

LANSING –Amid economic challenges, a new statewide plan and collective efforts could provide more opportunities to showcase the state’s history, preservationists say.

“We want to make it easier to apply for our programs,” said Amy Arnold, a preservation planner for the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.

Those programs include the Michigan Lighthouse Assistance Program, Historic Preservation Tax Credits and Certified Local Government partnership.

Arnold said the preservation office will use the 2020-25 Michigan Statewide Historic Preservation Plan in assessing opportunities and challenges that face historic preservation.

According to the agency, it approved 142 projects for tax credits between 2014-19 and distributed more than $1.7 million in additional grants for preservation activities.

The new plan includes preservation education, expanded funding opportunities and increased diversity in historic preservation. 

Although funding remains undetermined, Arnold said that the agency anticipates reaching this year’s goals.

She said the state intends to implement the new plan in the next month or so.

“It takes about a year for the whole process,” Arnold said. 

Arnold said her office will promote the plan using social media — between its Facebook and Twitter accounts, it has approximately 8,500 followers. 

The office will send a link to the plan to Michigan’s 76 communities with historic district commissions, will provide information to participants in the statewide Historic Preservation Network annual conference and email participants at public and stakeholder planning meetings.

Although the federal government requires the preservation office to create a new plan every five years, Arnold said the basic format remains the same.

“What changes is the assessment of accomplishments that highlights actions that were undertaken to meet the last plan’s goals, the identification of the threatened resources and the acknowledgement of issues that will impact preservation over the next five years,” she said.

The plan includes increasing partnerships, such as one with the Department of Natural Resources. The Michigan History Center is part of the department.

“We are committed to the stories and the special places of Michigan,” said Suzanne Fischer, the center’s museum director. “We are always preserving something or someplace for the people of Michigan.” 

The center manages 12 historic sites — eight of them in parks. They offer exhibits and programs about Michigan’s history.

They include the Mann House in Concord, Tawas Point Lighthouse in East Tawas and Sanilac Petroglyphs in Cass City. 

The Michigan History Center also manages the Ulysses S. Grant home, which was moved last year from the State Fairgrounds in Detroit to Detroit’s Eastern Market. Grant, who later became the 18th U.S. president, lived there from April 1849 to May 1850 while stationed in Detroit as an Army officer, according to Historic Detroit’s website, historicdetroit.org.

“We are really excited to share it with communities,” Fischer said.

To preserve the state’s history takes a “collective effort,” she said.

May is Historic Preservation Month.

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