LANCASTER : Art Deco-Style Complex Put on Historic Register
The Art Deco-style Cedar Avenue Complex, which includes five buildings that are among the oldest in Lancaster, has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district.
The downtown complex, its buildings constructed between 1920 and 1938, was listed in the register following months of community effort to save the city-owned structures, which earlier this year were considered by the City Council for demolition.
“Although some people think they’re ugly, some people are charmed by them,” said Diana Gravatt, a member of the Committee to Save the Cedar Avenue Complex.
From the 1920s to the 1950s, the complex was the site of a county government center, including a jail and a health center.
Being included on the national register, which is considered an official list of the nation’s cultural resources, does not dictate that the Cedar Avenue complex must be preserved, said Beth Savage, an architectural historian for the National Register of Historic Places.
But it is a “recommendation that the property be preserved, that it’s worthy of preservation,” she added.
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