On Thursday, October 30, our Executive Director Chris Moore was the featured guest on an episode of SPACE 101.1 FM’s “The Bridge,” hosted by Jean Godden and Julianna Ross. Listen to the episode or read the transcript below.

Jean Godden:
Good afternoon, listeners. You are tuned to KMGP, a community radio station from Magnuson Park. This program, “The Bridge,” connects you to your neighbors, your community, and the Puget Sound region. And we call our program “The Bridge,” because Seattle is a city of bridges. We have 130 of them, and they could link us, one to another. Cohosts for “The Bridge” are Julianna Ross and me, Jean Godden. Julianna founded this station, Space, 101.1 FM. Space stands for Sandpoint Arts and Culture Exchange. Julianna has worked for just about every organization with Seattle in its name—Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Symphony, and Seattle Weekly, just to name a few. And there’s me, Jean Godden. I wrote for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and then The Seattle Times before quitting in 2003 to run for Seattle City Council. To everyone’s surprise—me especially—I won, and I went on to serve for 12 years. I’m now retired, and I write for postalley.org, as well as doing research for this program. Today we are welcoming Chris Moore, Executive Director of Washington Trust for Historic Preservation. Chris, tell us about your background.

Chris Moore:
Thank you very much. Jean and Julianna, it’s an absolute pleasure to be here. I really welcome the opportunity. I have been with the Washington Trust now—and I still kind of have to slap myself a little when I say this—for 20 years. I started way back in 2005 and began as the organization’s first Field Director, which was really the best job ever. It was exactly as it sounded. I got to travel all across the state and visit pretty much all four corners and learn about the incredibly rich heritage that Washington State has and the incredible diversity that it holds as well. Not being from Washington originally, I got very acquainted with the landscape, with the state, with the resources in relatively quick order, and I’ve been doing that for 20 years. I’m now the Executive Director, as you noted, and all of it has been an incredible thrill.

Jean Godden:
What brought you first to Seattle, to the area?

Chris Moore:
Probably an age-old story. My wife and I were living in Boston, where I was doing my graduate work in historic preservation. I completed a master’s in preservation studies from Boston University, but both of us were West Coast kids. She grew up here in the Puget Sound region, and I grew up in the Bay Area. So when we were in Boston and we said, “Hey, where should we move back to?” I said, “Well, let’s go back to San Francisco,” where we met. And she said, “How about Seattle,” where she grew up. And we ended up in Seattle.

Julianna Ross:
It’s a little more affordable too, I’m sure. Well, at the time.

Chris Moore:
I think so, and I’m sort of making light of it, but we were very pleased that the Washington Trust was an organization that offered me a job, so it really made it an easy decision to come here. And at the time, the Trust was not a new organization necessarily—we’ll actually be celebrating our 50th anniversary next year in 2026—but it was still somewhat young and nascent in terms of even having staff. I was really fortunate to be one of—well, I think the first full-time staff person. We had another staff person who was at 80%, and then I was hired by an interim Executive Director. So we were pretty young and certainly willing and agile at the time. But that’s what ended up bringing me out here, the opportunity to work for the Washington Trust.

Jean Godden:
Tell us a little bit more about the Trust. What’s its mission?

Chris Moore:
The Trust’s mission is: we work with communities to preserve, share, and shape the future of historic places across Washington. We recently updated our mission statement, so I’m pleased that I was able to recite it off memory there, but really that has always been the goal. We are an advocacy organization. We are a nonprofit organization, and I think our mission statement represents it pretty well. We do want to work with communities across the state to save those places that matter to them, to our region, to the state, and, in many cases, to our nation. We’ve got some incredible stories and resources here in Washington State that are significant to our national narrative. Our goal is to do what we can tangibly to save actual resources, working with those communities, working on policy. We’ve done that at the at the local, state, and federal level. We represent Washington’s interests at the federal level from a policy standpoint, and really the storytelling is what it comes down to at the end of the day. The buildings, the landscapes—they’re wonderful, they’re beautiful, but it’s the people and those stories which imbue significance in those places. We can’t relate or demonstrate the work that we do sufficiently if we’re not able to capture and relay those stories.

Jean Godden:
Tell us about the history of the National Historic Preservation Act. How did that come about?

Chris Moore:
It’s a timely question, because there’s a lot of talk and discussion about that right now. The National Historic Preservation Act was from 1966, and it came about in a time where we were seeing a lot of legislation around “conservation.” Certainly, a lot of environmental legislation came out around then—the Wilderness Act was in 1966 or ’65, which did a lot to protect wild areas and natural areas. The National Historic Preservation Act provided a framework for how to preserve historic places and spaces, but it came out of that movement, in undoing some of the ills to our built environment that came out of the ’50s out of urban renewal, out of the highway system, to be quite honest. We’ve got a good example of that right here in Seattle. When you think of the construction of I-5, it absolutely bisected a neighborhood. And like in many communities where that kind of construction happened, it was done in a community that might be—I always struggle with this term a little bit, I don’t think they used this term in the ’50s—but what today might be considered a marginalized neighborhood, at least from a power and agency standpoint. The reason I don’t like to say that word is because it can denote, I think, some deficiency in some way, and if you think of our International District, there’s nothing deficient about it. It is so culturally rich and important in our own history, but it didn’t have necessarily the agency and the power to stop that construction or have it done in a way that was perhaps not as destructive.

Jean Godden:
The National Act leads states like Washington to take similar action. Was that sort of the impetus for that?

Chris Moore:
A lot of states ultimately have adopted rules and policies that have come out of the National Historic Preservation Act to a certain degree for, and I’ll just give a couple of sort of brief examples. It was that act which established the National Register of Historic Places, our national list of historic places, which is essentially maintained by the National Park Service. If you get listed in the National Register as either a historic building or a structure or a traditional cultural property, it’s a great honor, but that’s really all it is. It’s an honorific. There are no protections or regulatory bearing that comes with listing in the National Register, but it created this framework to look at criteria that we should apply when trying to consider whether a resource is significant or not. It talks about integrity and what elements need to be present in a historic building in order for it to convey its sense of history. So there’s the designation piece at the national level and then at the state and local levels as well. Here in Washington, we have the Washington Heritage Register, and then at the local level, the Act also created the framework for creating a local Register of Historic Places and getting local designation. Here in the city of Seattle, we’ve got a really incredible history with our preservation ordinance, local preservation action, and the list of landmarks that that are here in Seattle.

Jean Godden:
How old does the structure need to be before it becomes eligible for listing in the National Register?

Chris Moore:
This is a number that a few years ago I actually became less and less comfortable with, because it’s 50 years—you only have to be 50 to be considered. So I’m a landmark. I’m considered historic. So at the federal level, for eligibility for listing in the National Register, the cutoff is 50 years. They do have what they consider special criteria within the National Register framework, so that elements or resources that haven’t reached 50 can be considered for the National Register if they’ve achieved historic significance in the more recent past, but it’s used pretty sparingly. Fifty is really the benchmark. I forget if the Space Needle is listed in the National Register, but that would be an example, right? The Space Needle is obviously sort of an instant landmark. That would be something that you might be able to look at and say, “We don’t need to wait until it’s 50 to really understand its significance as a historic structure.” So 50 is the cutoff. That changes at state and local levels. Local ordinances can set it at different ages according to what they think is appropriate. Until recently, Seattle actually had an allowance for something to be considered at 25 years old or more—again, used incredibly sparingly, but the Space Needle example is apt there as well. But in general, 50 years is the cutoff.

Jean Godden:
What are some of the projects that the Trust is currently undertaking?

Chris Moore:
Oh gosh, too many. I want to think of it in terms of our program areas, but also in terms of specific resources, because those are tangible. What’s going on around the state with those, some of your listeners should be hopefully familiar with. Closing arguments are being submitted this week for the former Masonic home in Des Moines just south of here in King County. This is a very large—if it’s not 100,000 square feet, it’s pretty close—four- or five-story building overlooking Puget Sound in Des Moines. It was built in 1926 by the Masons, specifically built as a retirement home for elderly, retiring masons in the trades who were members. It stopped being used as a retirement home by 2005 or thereabouts. They tried for a number of years to make it work economically. They looked for buyers who would preserve the building, and it was tough times, amid a recession. Ultimately they sold it to an entity that did not have preservation in mind. Fast forward to now. There’s about a five-year demolition permit process in place. The City required the owner to complete an environmental impact statement, because the loss of the structure everyone recognized would be a significant impact to the environment. That all happened, and the city accepted the environmental impact statement and issued a demolition permit, basically saying that the owner had done what they needed to do, to show that there were really no alternatives to their proposed purpose of demolition. But if your purpose is to demolish the building, how can you genuinely think about alternatives, if that’s what you want to do? Which is a whole issue within SEPA [State Environmental Policy Act]. We are at the point in the process where a great community group locally who cares deeply about this building and represents a lot of voices in Des Moines appealed the city’s decision—both the environmental impact statement and the demolition permit. Just last week, a hearing examiner held a two-day hearing where both sides got to say their piece, and we’ll now wait to hear the outcome of that. I should say, the Washington Trust joined that appeal with the local group, so we are an appellant in the case, as is the Des Moines Historical Society. It is an uphill battle to fight in a decision that comes out of City Hall in the case in Des Moines. We’re hopeful. We think we made a good case as to why there were errors in the process, but if next month, we get a ruling from the hearing examiner that everything can go ahead, there’s still the option to appeal to Superior Court. But that might be the last straw. And this is an incredible resource, not listed in the National Register, but eligible for listing—this gorgeous building.

Julianna Ross:
What is the estimated redevelopment cost?

Chris Moore:
This is part of the environmental impact statement. The owners and the owners’ reps—they hired all the people they needed to hire to show that rehabilitation of the building was not feasible. And this is part of what the appeal is about, right? I forget the exact numbers, but they were big, right? It’s $150 million or whatever the number is to rehab this building, and we really worked to ensure that that they didn’t look at just the rehabilitation of the building alone. It sits on a 30-acre parcel. So how can you develop in a way that would help leverage that, and even that was found to be not feasible? Part of the appeal was actually an attempt to question some of those numbers, question some of the development scenarios that they analyzed, and suggest that maybe there were additional scenarios that could have been looked at that might have resulted in a different outcome. But this is where everyone gets their experts. You’ve got experts saying, “You can never do this,” and you have other experts saying, “Hey, I think you can, but it’s a lot.” There’s no question—it would be a lot of money.

Julianna Ross:
If they do demolish it, are there any salvage requirements, or do they have to reuse or save any of the bricks and other materials?

Chris Moore:
There is salvage in the mitigation plan that is in place. It’s a little unclear or fuzzy exactly how that would be implemented, and it would not be done from the standpoint of “you must save certain elements to be reused in new development.” Because this is just a demolition permit. There’s nothing about what the new development will be, but there is at least a clause that you can come in and salvage some of those materials. It’s a really intact building, but at the end of the day, you’re still talking about a huge building, the vast majority of which will end up in a landfill.

Julianna Ross:
Can you ever put a dollar figure on the embodied energy of a building?

Chris Moore:
I think you can. I don’t have that calculation for this building in my head, but it is possible to take a look at that whole concept of embodied energy and understand that whatever they might build on that site, moving forward, regardless of how many energy efficient systems they put in or how many solar panels—and I’m not saying that shouldn’t be done with new construction, it absolutely should, but it still won’t negate the carbon loss, the carbon footprint, the embodied energy that is in that building right now. That, I think, is something we quite honestly need to do a better job of talking about in our field of not just the preciousness of a historic building, but there’s a real sustainability element here as well. We can’t just tear everything down. It’s not going to work.

Julianna Ross:
I know in Portland, they have a thing where if you’re tearing down a historic building (and I’m not sure what that is), you have to take it apart and salvage the materials, and it serves as a stick against people just tearing houses down. Do you know how that’s working?

Chris Moore:
I don’t know exactly how it’s working in Portland, other than I know it’s there, and that’s the whole deconstruction, right? That is something that when we talk about salvage—I want to make the distinction—it’s important to look at architectural salvage, and maybe there’s light fixtures or really interesting beams or things that can be salvaged. When you talk about deconstruction, there’s much more that results in a much higher diversion from the landfill, because now you’re able to break down component parts to recyclable materials or perhaps more reuse as well. So it can increase the amount of material that can be reused, but it certainly increases that which can be recycled. Kudos to Portland for having a deconstruction ordinance in place. We see the outcome of that as being maybe a deterrent to taking down old buildings, but it’s also a nod to the sustainability component that existing buildings play in our landscape. I think it’s good to look at it from both angles.

Jean Godden:
That’s in Des Moines. Are there preservation projects situated throughout the state that you’re working on?

Chris Moore:
Absolutely, there are projects across the state all the time. One of the really interesting ones—I’ll try not to go into too much detail about it—was the Beverly Bridge, which is in Beverly, Washington. The Beverly Bridge crosses the Columbia River east of Ellensburg in the foothills there on the east side of the Cascades. I love this story because it was to me preservation advocacy and policy and sort of regulation at its best, with a good group of local advocates working through a regulatory process and then working with the state. Ultimately, the state came through and did a great job in providing some rehabilitation dollars for the Beverly Bridge. In short, it was an old railroad bridge. It hadn’t been used by the railroad since the mid ’80s or mid ’90s. It was owned by BNSF, and BNSF turned it over to DNR, but the whole goal was that it become part of the Palouse to Cascades Trail, a rails to trail project. Then the bridge had an unfortunate fire about 10 to 15 years ago, and it was essentially unpassable. So you had this really big gap in what is this cross-state recreational trail. It was the largest gap in the trail, the gap across the Columbia River. If you’re a cyclist, you could get to one end of the bridge and then have to take a 45-mile detour.

Julianna Ross:
You have to do your Evel Knievel, jump the river.

Chris Moore:
Yeah, exactly. But the long and short of it is, BNSF was seeking to replace three other historic railroad trestle bridges along the Columbia River—steel truss bridges, eligible for the National Register, important but their functional life was over, and this happens, right? We can’t save everything. We know that. So what we did is BNSF said, as part of the mitigation for replacing these three bridges, we’ll provide funding to do an assessment of the Beverly Bridge and figure out what it would take to rehab that bridge. We got that assessment done, and then we started talking to folks in the governor’s office who worked on recreation issues and started talking to the folks at the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, who thought, hey, this is a really great idea, and ultimately, we use that money to hire engineers that said this bridge could be rehabilitated for trail use to the tune of about $5 million. We took that proposal to the governor, and to his credit, Governor Inslee put that in his budget. It went through, and three years later, we had a rehabilitated Beverly Bridge. It closed that gap. Now it is actively used by cyclists, pedestrians, equestrians. The John Wayne Wagons and Riders Association, they were huge proponents of the bridge because for them it’s part of the recreational benefits that we have here. So there was this great coalition of folks, and we loved it. Fantastic outcome.

Jean Godden:
When we talk about preservation projects, are we talking solely about brick-and-mortar projects, or are there other preservation needs?

Chris Moore:
Yeah, such a great question. I think for so long, that was really the focus of those of us in the preservation world, right? The bricks and mortar, the buildings, the architectural detail, the finery, and all that’s great and really important. But there’s a whole history out there that isn’t necessarily captured in the built environment, so there is a lot of work to be done. Sometimes it’s what we call intangible heritage, but I think in general it’s about how we recognize and honor those places that aren’t there anymore, but that help tell the story of individuals, of movements, of communities that maybe weren’t part of the dominant narrative that we’ve seen over the last century, or whatever it might be. I go back to the urban renewal example, when urban renewal happened. In most cases, those were historic neighborhoods. Historic areas that might not have been considered historic might have been considered blight, right? They’re blighted, but that’s a code word. In a lot of ways, these were historic neighborhoods that were vibrant communities, oftentimes immigrant or ethnic communities that may not have had the agency or political power to stop something, but they’re gone. So how do we honor and tell that story, raise awareness about what’s there now, and in some ways, it’s not traditional preservation. We don’t have the same incentives. We’ve got good incentives for rehabbing historic buildings. But what do you do when you don’t have the building? I think there’s a lot of really interesting interpretation happening. There are different kinds of trails that might be a “memory trail,” but you can walk a trail and know where things were while also seeing where things still exist. That gives context for the things that have been lost. That’s a really interesting way to do it. Oral histories are becoming important, more so as we get past each generation. Because obviously once that generation is gone, you can’t access that oral history anymore. There are a lot of organizations doing great work with oral histories. All of that, I think, is a really important part of our movement in preservation. Some of the exciting things are about how you take whatever material culture might remain, but also some of what’s lost in some of those interpretive elements, and blend them with the fabric that does still exist, right? So, if there is still a building that represents a broader story, what can you do with that building in an interesting and curious way?

Jean Godden:
Let’s tell us about grants that make preservation possible. Are there tax advantages that the legislature has enacted?

Chris Moore:
This is a great segue, because just last week, the grant application cycle for both historic cemeteries and historic theaters opened. These are programs that the legislature has funded, and the money sits within the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, or DAHP. These are programs of DAHP, and historic cemeteries has been around for I think this is the fifth cycle, and historic theaters, it’s just the third cycle. In fact, in the very first round of theater grants, the theater here in Magnuson Park received funding. So even that building took advantage. For historic cemeteries, there is actually no match required. You can apply for up to $50,000 to help with cemetery preservation. And for theaters, it’s up to $75,000, and match is required. But if the theater is in a rural area with a population less than 50,000, that match ratio is reduced by about half. What’s really key about these programs and unique is that private property owners are eligible to apply. I think what that shows is that there is a real acknowledgement on the part of the legislature that our built environment, our historic resources, have a public benefit because we couldn’t provide those grant funds unless there is a return public benefit. There is also a program for historic barns, and I mentioned the others first, because the grant cycle for barns just wrapped up a couple weeks ago. There’s a whole register for heritage barns. There are grant funds, and that’s been a program since the 2007-2009 biennium. I think we’re in our 10th round of that. Washington Trust is very privileged and proud to work with DAHP to administer some of these grant programs. We have 50 applications for barns requesting almost $3.8 million in grant funds. There isn’t that much to go around–unfortunately, there’s way more in requests than is available—but Washington has really been uniquely situated to have some of these grant programs out there that operate on a statewide level, that are investments by the state into our built environment. That’s at the state level.

Julianna Ross:
You also administer the Main Street Program, right?

Chris Moore:
We do. That is a Washington program, a state program of Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation—similar to the grant programs the legislature has funded. They have funded that program through DAHP for a number of years, and the Washington Trust helps manage that under contract. Main Street is rooted in historic preservation. The whole concept got created in the mid ’70s, when we started to see what I will call the mallification of America—m-a-l-l. It was a turning away from our historic downtowns. The highway system was fully in place by then, car culture was definitely around, and sometimes downtowns were not seen as the place you wanted to be. The idea was that Main Street is a return to your historic downtown, because from the standpoint of your own city, your own community, your downtown, is unique to you. You cannot replicate that in a mall. You walk into a mall, you could be anywhere—Anywhereville, United States. But when you go downtown to your local community, that local hardware store, that local theater, it only exists there. The idea was, you take those historic resources that constitute your downtown commercial center and use that as your basis for economic revitalization. At the end of the day, it’s an economic program, but it’s rooted in historic preservation. Now that’s happening all over. Now in Washington State, we’re up to about 80 communities involved in the Main Street network. Forty of those are designated Main Street Communities, and they’re all the communities you would expect them to be—Walla, Walla, Ellensburg, Port Townsend, Coupeville, Wenatchee, Colville, Colfax. They’re all over the state, and it still sticks to the core principles of economic revitalization, using your existing built environment and your downtown commercial center.

Jean Godden:
This is the time to pause briefly during today’s discussion with Chris Moore to remind you that you are tuned to “The Bridge,” an interview program on SPACE 101.1 FM. You the listener can keep community radio alive. We invite you to go to space101.org and consider volunteering or donating. Back to today’s discussion with Chris Moore of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation. Chris, what do we tell people about the value of preservation? Why do we save pieces of our past?

Chris Moore:
It’s such a good question. It’s so personal, right? I think everyone has a connection. We always talk about this with the barn program. Why have a historic barn program at the state level that provides funding for barns? Who do you know that doesn’t love a barn? Who do you know that says, ‘Oh, geez, historic barns. They’re terrible. We don’t want to see those.’ I think that that is kind of part of the calculus around preservation. Whether it’s a memory, whether it’s nostalgia, whether it is an appreciation for artistry—and I don’t mean that just from an architectural standpoint, because we do have some incredibly, beautifully designed buildings that are high style and are beautiful, but it’s also that craftsmanship, that tangible connection to the past or to something that is rooted. There’s a psychological component. It’s comforting to know that a building or a structure has lasted, has stood the test of time. There’s something comforting to know that the building you’re in or the brick chimney you’re touching has been there for 50 years or 75 years or 100 years. There’s something comforting to know that other people have been there before you and experienced maybe similar things you’ve been experiencing, whether that’s good cheer with friends, whether that is more solemn events that are markers in our life, funerals, weddings, those happen in historic buildings all the time. To know that other people have that shared experience with you, even though you don’t know who they are or you don’t know the details of that experience, there’s something comforting about that, especially, when we get into what is seemingly to me—and again, I’m technically historic now, so I can say this—more bifurcated, where our attention is pulled and drawn in so many different ways, where seems to be so much more uncertainty. In this moment, we have a lot of uncertainty in the way things are going, and I think that historic buildings, landscapes, places with which we are familiar in general, can be a tonic to some of that discord out there.

Jean Godden:
Tell us about the Stimson-Green Mansion and how it has become something of a talisman for preserving endangered properties.

Chris Moore:
Absolutely. We are the very proud stewards of the Stimson-Green Mansion on First Hill. It now serves as our offices and as a wonderful place to hold an event, a celebration of any kind, or even come for a program or a concert, which we are now doing. The Stimson-Green Mansion is very much a part of the trajectory and history of the organization as a whole. I mentioned that our 50th anniversary as an organization will be next year, in 2026. For the first half of that tenure, the Trust was like so many nonprofits and preservation nonprofits that got established around that time. The mid ’70s was a blossoming of preservation organizations, in large part because of the bicentennial. 1976 was the bicentennial of the country, and that sparked a lot of patriotism and looking back, so a lot of preservation organizations that you’ll see around the country were established around that time. But for the first half, we were an all-volunteer organization, with a great active board doing great work, but there really was no paid staff for a sustained amount of time. That changed when the Stimson-Green Mansion came into our portfolio, so to speak. Patsy Collins was the benefactor who gifted the building to the Washington Trust, and she obviously had a really incredible connection, because Patsy was the daughter of Dorothy Stimson Bullitt, the daughter of Charles and Harriet Stimson who built the house in 1901. Charles and his family represented the Stimson Lumber Company, which was a mainstay here in early Seattle. With that gift of the house, with the ability to raise revenue by hosting events and having the property work for us, it enabled the board to go ahead and hire full-time staff. There was an executive director hired, an administrative assistant hired to work part-time, all back in 2001 when the house was gifted to the organization. We take very seriously our stewardship responsibilities—we try to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk with preservation as well, in how we treat the building and in work that is done to it. I will say it’s hard. It’s a big structure, and every day there are new things that need to happen, but we’re proud of the stewardship we’ve provided. We certainly invite people to come visit us. We offer tours, and it is available for events. Every week we are doing Thursdays at the Mansion, with rotating events. We’re doing trivia, we have concerts—great acoustical sets—and then some programs that we do as well. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind resource. I always say to folks, Seattle has great historic buildings, right? We’ve got some great historic homes that you can see. But I would argue that there are very few purpose-built structures built as residences that have the same degree of integrity that the Stimson-Green does when you walk inside. Pretty much what you’re seeing is what was there in 1901.

Jean Godden:
Tell us about how a structure or a place becomes “most endangered.” What is the significance, and what does “most endangered” lead to?

Chris Moore:
“Most Endangered,” in a lot of ways, is our marketing pitch, right? It’s the headline to catch people’s attention for the different challenges that buildings face. The National Trust for Historic Preservation—which is a national nonprofit, we are not affiliated with them—they started doing what they call their 11 Most program, where they would highlight 11 endangered properties across the country each year. A lot of statewide advocacy groups like ourselves adopted that model at the state level. So really, it is when there is a resource, whether it’s a building, structure—it can even be a landscape; the Robert Morris Earthwork is one that was on our Most Endangered list—but when they face some challenge, and that challenge could be the malicious, outright intent to demolish a building by an owner because they don’t care. It could be more benign where there is maybe consensus that this building ought to be saved, but we don’t know how to do it, or we don’t have the funds to do it. Or it could be actions that might be happening around inappropriate development nearby, that sort of thing. Any number of those factors can contribute to a site being part of the Most Endangered list. Once something is highlighted as Most Endangered for us, that’s when we really commit organizational resources to finding a positive preservation outcome for the building, the structure, whatever it might be.

Jean Godden:
Let’s talk about the national scene for a moment. What can we say about the White House and how President Trump has torn down the East Wing. Was his action legal?

Chris Moore:
Was it legal? Interesting question. It’s a hard topic. The White House is the people’s house, right? It really is the people’s house. It’s somewhat trite to say, but presidents rent it for four years or, if they’re lucky, eight. But really you’re a tenant there as a president and as an administration. I find it actually to be gravely disappointing and offensive, what was done and the manner in which it was done. What that building represents, what it means to us as Americans, let alone the physical kind of architectural piece. I will start out by saying we at the Washington Trust are uniformly appalled by the action and don’t think it was the right thing to do by any stretch. I know that every president, every administration, puts their mark on the White House in some way, shape, or form, but I would argue that it’s never been done in this manner, with this level of disregard for norms. Is it legal? We’ve had that question, people saying, “How could this happen? Aren’t there laws against that? Aren’t there protections?” There is a very specific code, and I promise I won’t get too nerdy about this, but there is a very specific element of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 called Section 106. Section 106 says that if the federal government is taking any action, they have to determine if historic resources are present. If they are, is there any adverse impact or harm to that historic resource as a result of the undertaking? If there is harm, then they have to work to either avoid, minimize, or, if you can’t avoid it, mitigate that harm. There are only three buildings in the country that are under the federal government’s purview and are exempt from Section 106. Those are the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, and the White House. On some level, it makes sense, right? Because each of those represent the three branches of government, so they’re exempt from 106, which is the review that would have taken a look at this demolition, if the administration had even bothered to go through it. But the White House was exempt. Still, there were other reviews that should have happened. Any plans for buildings on the mall or involved with the capitol, which the White House is, have to go through the office of the Architect of the Capitol. I don’t believe that happened. There is a committee whose acronym I’m forgetting, but it’s essentially a fine arts committee which looks at public art and other elements connected to the mall in D.C. As I understand it, the six members of that committee were fired just a couple of weeks ago, before the demolition took place. So is it legal? I don’t think there is a specific law against it. Does that make it right or okay? No, I would argue, not at all. It is a loss.

Julianna Ross:
One of my favorite topics that you know way more about is that preservation creates housing. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Chris Moore:
I’m glad you brought it up, because we’re in a moment right now where we absolutely acknowledge and agree with the incredible need for housing that we have not just in Seattle, not just in the state of Washington, but really across the country. If you go to most cities and urban areas, you will find that there’s a housing shortage, and that needs to be addressed. Where we take issue, where we’ve seen this tension come up in the last couple of years, is the notion that preservation is a barrier to housing. On some level, it’s been easy to say, “If you have a historic district or if you have a designated historic structure, and you can’t change it, well, that means we can’t put more housing there. That means we can’t build a tower.” On the surface, does designation limit or restrict development? Yes. Does it mean something is stuck in amber and there can’t be accommodations around it? No, not at all. When you look at some of the projects that involve historic buildings but still provide for density or height or the creation of housing, you’ll see that play out. It’s important to mention, in Seattle, fewer than 1% of the parcels have any kind of historic designation. It’s maybe one and a half in Tacoma, probably less than one in in Spokane. So the notion that the development of housing is being unduly hindered by preservation laws is just problematic. When you look at the numbers, there are just not that many places that actually have that designation. I also come back to the fact that when you look at affordable housing—and let’s not conflate affordable housing with housing overall, because they’re very different. A lot of the work that the legislature has done, and rightfully so, to increase housing density conflates in the mind of folks that, “Oh, if we create more housing, it means we’re going to get more affordable housing.” We need to be really careful about that, because new, market-rate housing is not affordable in the City of Seattle. I know there is a supply side argument that says, eventually, down the road, if we get more supply, in 50 years prices will come down. Yeah, that’s a long-term horizon. We can’t only be thinking in the moment, but there is still this moment, and I think it needs to be a blend of strategies. When you look at affordable housing—and I want to distinguish between deeded affordable housing that’s mandated by law and what we might call naturally occurring affordable housing, which is just housing that’s cheaper than new because it’s older, that exists in historic buildings or in existing buildings. A ton of affordable housing, and by this, I mean deeded, mandated capital, in the City of Seattle and in urban areas across the country are in historic buildings because of incentives. You can use federal tax credit incentives to rehabilitate historic buildings. You can couple those with low-income housing tax credits, and you can finance depending on different variables, but anywhere from 50% to 80% of a project, depending on the type of affordable housing you’re doing. There are some very powerful tools to create affordable housing in historic buildings. But even without that, you look at the adaptability of existing buildings, and we see this in Seattle. We see this in Browne’s Addition in the City of Spokane, which was where a lot of the wealthy merchants and entrepreneurs and industrialists in Spokane lived, and there’s big, fancy houses there. Then a lot of neighborhoods went through periods of decline, and people moved further out, right? But what happened is many of those buildings, those large homes, remain, but are now home to apartments that are small but are affordable. Amidst that, in the infill, where you had big, large lots, because those large houses wanted a lot of property, now those have been split up, and you have apartments that have been built as infill. What’s been created is a very interesting, dynamic, vibrant neighborhood that has multiple typologies of housing, and then retail comes in and other amenities, like dining options and things like that. It’s an incredible neighborhood. It’s wonderful. That is what’s getting lost in some of the discussion on just housing at all costs. What’s missed as well is some of the displacement, whether you want to call it gentrification or whether it’s just displacement, that is also happening when suddenly we have allowed any parcel zoned residential to be able to take up to four units, and in some cases, six units of housing, regardless of where it is. I’m not saying that that’s bad in and of itself. Again, we do need more housing. But to do that and not think about the pressure that you are putting on every renter in this city who has a landlord who is now thinking, “I can keep renting, or I can sell to the developer who’s going to put four townhomes up.” And guess what? The cost of each of those townhomes is going to be a million dollars. That’s what it’s going to be. The person who is renting is not going to be able to move back in. This is a really big topic and there’s all kinds of nuance to it, but I think that existing buildings, both historic and those that just happen to be old, need to be part of the housing solution as we work to address affordability.

Jean Godden:
You have to think about Building 9, right? A stone’s throw from where we’re making this broadcast.

Chris Moore:
What a great example of utilizing existing resources in a place that people already know and love and identify as historic, doing it to create absolutely top-rate affordable housing—not something that’s isolated from everything else, like some of our old ideas about where affordable housing should be—no, in these beautiful, historic buildings you have reused. I believe Building 9 is actually the largest structure by square foot within the Sandpoint Naval Air Station within Magnuson Park, because it’s so long. Again, you are saving the embodied energy, and you are using the historic and the low-income housing tax credits to get that project done. What a case study, what a brilliant example.

Jean Godden:
It gave us, what, 148 apartments?

Chris Moore:
I think it’s actually up in the two hundreds there. And that project took so many people to come together. I want to acknowledge Frank Chopp for that. He was instrumental in making that come together.

Jean Godden:
You had a couple of real champions in Frank Chopp and also Ralph Munro. We lost two real champions this year.

Chris Moore:
2025 has been a rough year. Jean, it’s been a rough year for preservation.

Jean Godden:
Chris, one of your duties as Executive Director is to oversee fundraising for the nonprofit. How does the Trust appeal to the public?

Chris Moore:
We kind of half laugh, half cry, sometimes that it’s hard to sell advocacy, right? But I think if you are a person who cares about our heritage, who cares about what history means, what it represents—both bad and good, not all of our history is good, and we need to be honest about that and reckon with that as well—but who understands that. Again, these buildings, these places, are touchstones to our past, to those stories. We’re doing the work to help save those places. That’s the appeal that we try to put out there for folks is that we’ll do everything we can. We work really hard at the legislative level. We work really hard with communities to save those places that matter to the local communities in which they’re situated. And that ultimately is what we’re trying to do. We have a lot of fun doing it. Sometimes it’s hard. Not every day is a win, but we do try and make it fun and engaging.

Jean Godden:
You produce a quarterly magazine, This Place. How does one obtain copies?

Chris Moore:
That’s a membership benefit, and the magazine is really good*. I would encourage people to go to our website, because we have archived versions on the website, and you can go back and see every past issue of This Place, which we use to highlight a lot of our work.

Jean Godden:
I’m afraid we have come to the end of another fascinating hour on “The Bridge.” We have been talking with Chris Moore of the Washington Trust. Chris, thank you so much for telling us about the Trust’s work to save places that matter.

Chris Moore:
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure and an honor being here. I appreciate it.

*Note: We’re sad to share that, due to budget constraints and rising costs, the Fall 2025 issue will unfortunately be the last for our printed magazine, This Place. But fear not! We’re working to transition much of the magazine’s recurring content to ongoing news posts on our website. Stay tuned to preservewa.org (and our social media channels @preservewa) for new original content, policy and advocacy updates, Main Street and preservation case studies, and much, much more. We hope you’ll also continue to contribute to the Washington Trust through your donations and memberships. Your support is needed now more than ever!

Read archived issues of This Place: preservewa.org/news-events/magazine/this-place-archive.