At a recent Garland City Council meeting, Richard D. Hargrove asked the council to alter the boundary map to include his property, the site of Alston’s Old Home Place Antiques, in the proposed Garland Downtown Historic District. However, The Texas Historical Commission, for the moment, has declined to allow the city of Garland to submit an altered boundary map.
City consultants instead were advised to submit the Alston request as a potential amendment to the May agenda for the State Board of Review meeting to consider nominations to the National Register.
In a letter to property owner Richard D Hargrove, city consultant Nancy McCoy of Quimby McCoy Preservation Architecture noted that a 30-day public notice that the state is legally required to post about the upcoming January 21 State Board of Review in Houston contained the original boundary map that did not include Alston’s.
She noted that alterations might delay the city’s current nomination as it stands at present in being able to pass without a hitch before the State Board of Review at the January 21 meeting. Once that happens, an amendment could be pursued.
The National Register nomination of Garland’s 11th Street, as encompassed in the Travis College Hill Historic District, was approved for advancement nationally by the State Board of Review at its September meeting in Alpine.
THC officials have asked McCoy’s firm to provide additional photos and other information that could substantiate the request. If the property is deemed qualifying and to have the proper “integrity” according to state guidelines, the THC could consider the amended boundary map in May.
Hargrove told city council at a Jan. 3 meeting that his property at 212 North 7th Street, site of the popular antiques business near the downtown square, had been on a city list of property owners that would be included in the district but then appeared outside the official boundary map that was presented to council.
Hargrove said his family’s building, built in 1925, was well within the period of significance (1897-1967) that the city has determined as the basis for its application. He asked council to encourage the city to amend its application to include the property. In a motion by Councilmember Anita Goebel, council asked those involved to look into the matter.
Hargrove has noted that his grandparents, Marvin and Thetis Alston, bought the building in 1943 and ran a furniture store out of it while they continued to live there throughout the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s Marvin and his son, Marvin Richard Alston (Hargrove’s uncle), opened a fruit stand at the location on 7th and continued this through the 1970s (after the family discontinued using it as a residence). The Alston family has operated an antiques business in its current form there since 1995, according to Hargrove.
The THC also declined to change the building at 107 North 6th (which houses the Generator Coffee Shop & Bakery) from being listed as “noncontributing” to “contributing” status and also declined to consider a request that a metal shed that exists hidden behind the storefronts on the square’s south side between Garland Furniture and Ivy Cottage be listed as contributing, according to Becky Beck King, managing director for the city. “Noncontributing” buildings in the new historic district will not be eligible for significant federal, state, and county tax credits and grants, which will become available to “contributing” structures in the district.