(ABC 6 News) – Rochester City Council has denied an appeal to remove the historic status on multiple downtown Broadway buildings.

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(ABC 6 News) – Members of the Rochester City Council held a public hearing on an appeal for the historical preservation of downtown buildings off of Broadway.

The hearing comes after the Heritage Preservation Commission denied the building owner’s previous request to remove the historical status of five buildings with a life span stretches over 130 years.

The 300 block of downtown Rochester has been under historical preservation by the city of Rochester since early 2019. The owner of these buildings, Hal Henderson, says it’ll be cheaper to demolish than to commit to upkeeping as is.

“Any old building of the age these are, they’re not built out of product that we’d use in today’s modern construction. They’re very soft brick, the buildings were never insulated so that brick does not hold up for a long time,” said Henderson.

Five buildings off the 300 block of Broadway are showing their age; Henderson along with fellow owners GKH2 Holdings, say it’s time for a change.

This includes Paine building which traces back to the days of the 1883 tornado and Mayo’s founding. During the Oct. 24 heritage committee meeting, Henderson’s request was denied by the committee 5-1. Shawn Fagan was the only member of Rochester’s historical preservation committee to voted to approve Henderson’s request.

“I felt for Hal. I get it, I understand kind of the struggles these old buildings have,” Fagan said. “I 100% understand where people are coming from with these being the last of the historic buildings. Apart of the issue that I feel and some of my neighbors feel is that we’re the ones who have sunk our savings, our sweat, our blood and equity into these buildings.”

With prototype design plans already in place with HGA Architecture firm in Rochester, which Henderson is a principal architect with. He is hoping the city council will see the need for change differently than the committee has.

“They’ve lived their useful life pretty much, and the maintenance on going just continues to escalate.”