Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Park Ave. neighborhood gets historic designation

NYS Parks

The Park Avenue area in Rochester is historic and now it has a federal designation to back that up.

Officials with the Landmark Society of Western New Yorksay that the Park Ave neighborhood recently was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Landmark Society Director of Preservation Caitlin Meives says that is something that has been in the works for about three years now. Meives says the Park Avenue neighborhood has some important architectural features.

“The Park Avenue area is special because it has really intact housing stock from the early 20th century that’s really remained intact over the many decades and it has lots of architect-designed houses. So lots of unique architecture and it just represents an important time period in our city’s history,” Meives says.

Meives says the designation will not prevent homeowners in the Park Avenue area from making changes to their homes. But she says it does give them the option of getting a state income tax credit for certain renovations that qualify under the program.

“It has virtually no impact on the homeowner unless you want to use the tax credit, in which case you do, you fill out an application. But if you don’t use the tax credit it changes nothing about the way you interact with your home. It doesn’t provide any additional review or restrictions or anything like that,” Meives says.”

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.