Historic Buildings in Fort Pierce

Three downtown Fort Pierce buildings have National Register of Historic Places files in the National Park Service NPGallery archive: Old City Hall, the Old Post Office and the Sunrise Theatre.

A fourth Fort Pierce file covers the Fort Pierce Site, which is a site rather than a building, and the Old City Hall form also notes two other National Register listings by year, St. Lucie High School (NR 1984) and Casa Caprona (NR 1984).

Each row comes from the property's own registration form: the Old City Hall nomination, the Old Post Office nomination, the Sunrise Theatre nomination and the Fort Pierce Site nomination. The Old City Hall file also has a National Register Information System record, ID 01001338, which lists its applicable criteria as event and architecture and carries the date 12/7/2001 (NPS NRIS record 01001338). The forms document history, architecture and boundaries; they are not visitor guides and list no opening hours.

The three buildings share a short stretch of downtown Fort Pierce, and the Old Post Office form traces the downtown blocks from the post office toward the river: Orange Avenue runs from the post office one block south to City Hall, another block to the FEC railway tracks and Depot Drive, a third to Second Street, a fourth to Indian River Drive and a fifth to the river (Old Post Office nomination, setting).

Old Fort Pierce City Hall at 315 Avenue A, built in 1925 and restored in 1995, is significant for its Mediterranean Revival architecture and as the headquarters of Fort Pierce city government for 46 years.

The nomination, prepared by the Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation in August 2001, lists William W. Hatcher and J. C. Hanner under Architect/Builder, calls the style Mediterranean Revival with Italian Renaissance details, and describes a cast stone frieze below a molded cornice and a sculptural entrance through an ornamental iron gate (Old City Hall nomination). The second floor holds a large hall, originally the council chambers, now used for meetings and parties, and the fire stairs and a rear elevator addition were part of the 1995 restoration. The form lists the site number as 8SL00289.

Its history tracks the city's boom and bust. The form says Fort Pierce's population peaked at 8,500 in 1925, the year a new fire station, a jail and the Mediterranean style City Hall were built, before the real estate collapse and the hurricanes of 1926 and 1928. City government stayed in the building until 1971, when the mayor and staff moved to temporary quarters; it then housed Planning, Building and Community Development until a new city hall reunited the departments in 1991. The nomination says the building was saved from demolition, restored in 1995, and, as of the 2001 form, used for commercial offices and as a public meeting place under the auspices of the Main Street organization, and calls that restoration a positive turning point for preservation in downtown Fort Pierce.

The Fort Pierce Old Post Office at 500 Orange Avenue is a 1935 Mediterranean Revival building whose nomination lists significance in architecture, politics and government, and art, the last for a Treasury Department mural in its lobby.

According to the April 2001 nomination, the two-story building has an asymmetrical plan on a steel frame set on pilings, walls of 12 inch terra cotta tile finished in smooth beige stucco, and six roof levels, four of them flat and parapeted, with red clay tile hipped roofs over the southwest upper story and the northwest corner tower (Old Post Office nomination). It stands on an 18,924 square foot lot at the northwest corner of Orange Avenue and Fifth Street, entered from Orange Avenue, and the form says the building anchors the western quadrant of the Fort Pierce community redevelopment area.

Across the west wall at the end of the lobby, from the crown molding down, the nomination describes a mural commissioned under the Treasury Department program, painted by Lucille Blanch, depicting "Osceola Holding Informal Court with his Chiefs." The Old City Hall nomination places the post office among only two significant buildings that went up in Fort Pierce in the economic slump of the 1930s, the other being the 1937 Coast Guard station (Old City Hall nomination, historical context).

The Sunrise Theatre at 117 South 2nd Street is significant at the local level for its architecture as a mixed-use retail, office and entertainment building and for over sixty years as the social and cultural center of Fort Pierce.

Its nomination says the 1923 building reflects the transition from Mission to Mediterranean Revival style, was the largest theater on the east coast between Jacksonville and Miami when built, and was the direct forerunner of the Mediterranean style, mixed-use projects that followed in Fort Pierce during the decade (Sunrise Theatre nomination). The form claims significance under Criterion C for architecture and Criterion A for entertainment and recreation, and lists Architecture and Recreation as its areas of significance with a period of significance from 1923 to 1951. The separate Sunrise Theatre guide covers the building's history, seats, box office and parking.

Beyond the National Register files, City of Fort Pierce pages single out the Lincoln Park neighborhood, its historic Lincoln Theater, and a former church on Avenue D that now houses the Highwaymen Museum.

The city's Historical Lincoln Park page names the historic Lincoln Theater as one of only four African American owned theaters in the country (City of Fort Pierce, Historical Lincoln Park), a claim the city makes on its own page, and notes that the city offers matching commercial facade grants along the Avenue D corridor.

At 1234 Avenue D, the City of Fort Pierce Florida Highwaymen Museum occupies a 3,200 square foot, two-story building that was once a church and later a rooming house, converted by the city and the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency as part of a plan to revitalize the corridor (City of Fort Pierce, Highwaymen Museum). The Fort Pierce Site on South Indian River Drive, where the Second Seminole War fort stood, has no visible remains according to its National Register nomination (Fort Pierce Site nomination); the Old Fort Park guide covers that ground. The city FAQ also lists the Seven Gables House among the buildings its Facilities Maintenance Division keeps up, alongside City Hall and the Garden Center Building (City of Fort Pierce FAQ).

The City of Fort Pierce Historic Preservation Division keeps a Fort Pierce Register of Historic Places, takes a Designation Application from owners who want a home or business designated, and publishes a Historic Preservation Tax Exemption brochure.

All three items are named in the Historic Preservation Division block of the city's FAQ page, which answers what properties are historic in the City of Fort Pierce by pointing to the local register (City of Fort Pierce FAQ, Historic Preservation Division). Local designation is separate from the National Register files above.

For a Fort Pierce owner, the state framework is section 196.1997, Florida Statutes, which lets a county or municipality adopt an ordinance exempting up to 100 percent of the assessed value of improvements made to historic properties through restoration, renovation or rehabilitation, only for taxes levied by the government granting it and only for improvements made on or after the day the ordinance is adopted; an exemption lasts up to 10 years and requires the historic character to be maintained (F.S. 196.1997). The ordinance designates a local historic preservation office or the state Division of Historical Resources to review applications and recommend that the governing body grant or deny the exemption.

Listing also matters if a building comes down. Section 162.09(2)(e) lets a code enforcement board or special magistrate exceed the usual fine limits for the knowing and willful, unpermitted demolition of a building individually listed in the National Register or contributing to a listed district, up to 20 percent of the property's market value before demolition as determined by the property appraiser (F.S. 162.09); that rule applies in Fort Pierce as everywhere in Florida.