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Historic landmark designation plays a key role in ensuring the protection and preservation of historically significant buildings, landscapes and sites. It provides benefits to the community at large, recognizing the importance of the cultural heritage of a particular place. While you’ve probably heard of landmark designation, it’s important to understand that the process of receiving a designation is far from simple, and can happen at a number of different levels. Read on to learn about the key types of historic landmark designation, and the application processes and benefits for each.

Have you ever visited a restaurant or local attraction that boasts about their buildings’ historical relevance or original purpose? You probably visited a building that had undergone adaptive reuse. Adaptive reuse is the process of taking an old building or site and reusing it for a purpose other than it was designed: for example, an old shipping facility getting converted into a food hall, or a former rooming house becoming modern office space.

St. Petersburg, a city surrounded by water and known for its resort lifestyle, had no pools where African Americans could swim until 1954. That changed when Jennie Hall, an 85 year old white woman from Montana, stepped forward to help the African American community build a pool. With a rather startling and unannounced moment in front of St. Petersburg’s city council in June 1953, Jennie Hall proclaimed she would be donating $25,000 for a swimming pool to serve the African American community. To prove her seriousness, she wrote a check for $10,000 on the spot and promised an additional $15,000. The City Council, somewhat cowed and taken aback, agreed to match the gift with $35,000 of city funds.

Preserve the ‘Burg often gets questions about what can the City offer for help with preservation concerns and where to go within the City to get answers to preservation questions. The City has a small historic preservation staff, a historic preservation commission and a myriad of online resources for those seeking help and answers to their questions. We know it’s not always easy to understand what to look for or who to ask - even the historic preservation info on the city’s website is a bit counter-intuitive to find (historic preservation is not listed under city departments). Read on and hopefully you will have your answer for the what’s what and the who’s who and learn about how to find the fun stuff!