There will be a public hearing during the Iowa City Council’s formal meeting on Tuesday about whether to designate the 19th century building and longtime home of Pagliai’s Pizza as an Iowa City Historic Landmark.
The push to have the building at 302-316 E Bloomington Street landmarked began after the building was listed for sale in late September.
“OUTSTANDING opportunity to own a true Landmark property,” the September listings said (emphasis in the original). “1 Family Ownership since 1878. 2 long time commercial tenants, and 16 apartments. Always fully rented. NOT listed on Historic Register. PERFECT site for future development. CB-2 zoning. Downtown location as Near North Side. PIZZA and LAUNDROMAT are Tenants and are NOT CLOSING!!!!!!!!!!”
The asking price for the building is $5 million, even though the Iowa City Assessor’s Office currently values the property at $1,530,570. The high listing price, in combination with the ad’s text emphasizing that the building is “NOT listed on Historic Register,” immediately raised concerns that the building was being marketed to developers whose primary interest would be in tearing down the well-preserved 1875 building and replacing it with a new structure intended to maximize profit regardless of how it fits into the fabric of the community.
The reference to its lack of historic landmark status was subsequently removed from the ads on Zillow and Realtor.com.
Although it is popularly known as the Pagliai’s Pizza building, after the iconic restaurant located on the ground floor since the 1970s, its more properly known as the Slezak Building or the the Slezak-Holub-Skarda Building, after the family that’s always owned it.
Gary Skarda, the great-great grandson of the first owner, Joseph Slezak, is the current owner. Skarda has worked hard to maintain the building, which has 16 apartments above Pagliai’s and the laundromat in the rear of the building, and to preserve its historic features. In October, Skarda told the Daily Iowan he decided to sell the building because age and medical issues, including the amputation of his right leg, make it increasingly difficult for him to maintain the property.
“I was unable to do things at the property that I was able to do before,” Skarda said. “I can’t even drive right now because I need special tools in the car to be able to drive because it was my right leg.”
Skarda remains dedicated to preserving his family’s heritage, and would like to see any future owner continue his work, but he is not in favor of landmarking it, since that may discourage some potential buyers or result in a lower sale price.
Landmark status is normally conferred at a property owner’s request, the city council can designate a landmark without such a request if it determines it is in the public interest to do it. If the owner opposes the designation, it requires a supermajority of councilmembers — six out of seven — to confer landmark status on a property
Landmark status would not prevent the sale of the building. A report prepared earlier this year by the Iowa City Historic Preservation Commission’s staff explained how granting landmark status would change things.
“Designation of the property as an Iowa City Historic Landmark will require Commission approval of any significant changes to the exterior of the building. Landmark status will also make the property eligible for special exceptions that would allow the Board of Adjustment to waive or modify certain zoning requirements and for State Tax Credit funding of rehabilitation work. The property would also be eligible for the City’s Historic Preservation Fund to help with exterior repair work.”
In February, the Historic Preservation Commission voted unanimously to recommend landmark status. The matter then went to the Planning and Zoning Commission. The commission staff recommended landmarking the building, and the commission voted 6-1 in favor of doing so.
The matter now rests with the city council. Following the public hearing during the April 2 formal meeting, a vote is scheduled for the first reading of the ordinance that make the Slezak Building an Iowa City Historic Landmark.
In the March 26 edition of his email newsletter, Sullivan’s Salvos, Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan pointed out this isn’t the first time the issue has been before the city council.
“This building has long been recognized as a gem,” Sullivan wrote. “Going as far back as the 1980s the Historic Preservation Commission made at least three attempts to include it in a Northside Historic District or give it historic zoning status, but those failed. Previous City Councils did not have the political will to protect this building before it was on the market. It is now or never. It is up to this City Council to protect this icon in our community.”
Sullivan, who strongly supports the landmarking, explained that granting such status is very rare.
“Iowa City has over 27,500 properties, of which only 67 (0.2% — not even 1%) are Landmarks,” he wrote. “They represent not just highly loved properties but properties of great historic importance.”
The Friends of Historic Preservation hired historian Jennifer Price of Price Preservation Research to prepare a report on whether the Slezak-Holub-Skarda Building meets the architectural and historic criteria for landmark status and for being listed on the National Register. Price concluded it does.
The original footprint and design of this Italianate style building complex is intact, and the workmanship and materials of the original builders is visible on all sides. Extant original character-defining features — including the face brick, fenestration pattern, hood molds, brackets and cornices, and Baroque pediments — have been preserved throughout periods of remodeling and repurposing. The Slezak-Holub-Skarda Building conveys a feeling of time and place of a late-nineteenth-century Italianate commercial block — even with its modern commercial tenants — that the building’s original owners and customers would instantly recognize.
Price also summarized the importance of the building to the Czech immigrant community in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Narodni Sin (National Hall) was the second floor, and was “the venue for numerous dances, parties, sporting events, and staged entertainments” for the immigrant community.
The importance of that history is highlighted in a letter to the city council from the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) in support of landmark designation.
In the letter, NCSML President and CEO Dr. Cecilia Rokusek called 302-316 E Bloomington “a building that has statewide if not nationwide significance in the history of Czech-American culture.”
“Slezak Hall — or National Hall as it was historically known — represents the broad pattern of immigration from Central Europe to the United States … National Hall was the meeting place of several Czech fraternal organizations that welcomed new immigrants to Iowa. It as a place where immigrants learned English and were introduced to American customs, while at the same time participated in and preserved the customs of their old country.”
Dr. Rokusek added, “At a time when there is some hostility to immigrants, National Hall is a strong symbol of the important role that immigrants have had in building our nation.”
Support for landmarking also comes from the business community. Thirty Northside business owners signed a letter to the city council calling for a landmark designation.
The building has been “an anchor in the Northside Marketplace since 1875,” the letter states. “Its unique architecture adds to the charming ambiance that helps draw customers to our commercial district… Buildings and small businesses like this make the Northside Marketplace a commercial success and add to the special vibrancy of Iowa City that can’t be found elsewhere.”
There were more than two dozen emails supporting landmark status for the Slezak-Holub-Skarda Building including the agenda packet published last week for the city council’s April 2 meeting. There was no correspondence in the packet opposing it.
Members of the public will have the chance to voice their opinions on the matter during the city council meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at Iowa City Hall. Supporters have said they plan to gather outside the city council chamber 15 minutes before the meeting begins.
Editor’s note: Little Village art director Jordan Sellergren is the current chair of the Iowa City Historic Preservation Commission.
