This plaque on 22 Broadway in Saranac Lake commemorates the building as part of the National Register of Historic Places. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — The state has approved an expansion to the Berkeley Square Historic District, doubling the number of downtown Saranac Lake buildings on the New York historic registry and opening up the owners of these buildings to grants, tax credits and other assistance to preserve the condition of their buildings.

With the state’s approval — announced earlier this month by the state Division for Historic Preservation — the expanded district is recognized by the state and has been nominated to be on the National Register of Historic Places. This nomination has not yet been decided upon.

Historic Saranac Lake sponsored the expansion and contracted with Adirondack Architectural Heritage for the survey of each of the buildings in this application.

HSL Executive Director Amy Catania said the owners of the buildings now included in the district will have easier access to grants because of their distinction.

Buildings like the Masonic Temple, owned by nonprofits, will be more competitive in grants for upgrades because of the designation. The temple was built in 1904 and altered in 1920.

Catania said there are several residential buildings on Woodruff Street whose owners can access homeowners credits, which are easier to utilize to fund small upgrades to the homes built in the 1800s.

The state has distributed $3.96 billion in historic tax credits statewide from 2018-2022 according to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office.

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The district

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The Berkeley Square Historic District was created in 1988 for its commercial buildings dating from 1867 to 1932 — with 23 contributing sites and four noncontributing.

In the years since, historians have found more documentation to expand the geography of the district. The expansion also includes a time period extension to encompass all seven decades when Saranac Lake was a national hub for tuberculosis treatment, now extending to 1954.

Catania said there is generally a 70-year-threshold for architecture to be labeled as “historic.” The passage of time since the initial 1988 district has allowed or more buildings to reach this classification. Also, 1954 is when the Trudeau Sanitorium closed permanently.

The expanded district has 28 new contributing properties and 11 new noncontributing.

Noncontributing buildings are properties that have had historic architecture in the past but are not currently historic in appearance.

For example, the district’s namesake — Berkeley Green, where the Berkeley Hotel once stood — is not a contributing property. Because the hotel burned in 1981, it does not look like it did back then. The Enterprise offices are not contributing, because the facade has changed from what it was 70 years ago.

Catania said the owners of buildings like the Rice Furniture building or the Post Office Pharmacy building — which were left out of the original district — have restored their building facades to get them listed this time around. She called them “success stories.”

Some other notable structures to be added to the district include the Hotel Saranac, the Masonic Temple, the Saranac Lake Free Library, the federal post office and the Broadway bridge.

Catania said the Saranac Lake Post Office building is interesting because it’s a building designed by the U. S. Treasury Department and built in 1925 and still used for federal purposes. She believes it deserves proper care.

Catania said AARCH wrote a narrative for the history of each property and for the downtown district as a whole, which can be found at tinyurl.com/2n29rse5. She said this is now a community resource.

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The new district

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The majority of the existing district is on one continuous stretch of road on one side of Main Street and Broadway, from the Harrietstown Town Hall almost to the Saranac River. It also includes buildings on all corners of the Main Street and Broadway intersection where Berkeley Square is and a couple on the opposite side of Broadway, near the river. This district left out some of the commercial side streets and buildings that have undergone restorations in the decades since.

The expanded district stretches across the Saranac River on both sides of Broadway, all the way down to its intersection with Bloomingdale Avenue. It also includes both sides of Woodruff Street between Broadway and Church Street, and all the buildings on Main Street from the intersection with Broadway to where the Hotel Saranac and Saranac Lake Free Library end. The expanded district also stretches across state Route 3 to include the former Little Italy building and the historic Paul Smith’s Electric and Light building at 1-3 Main Street. The new district includes the buildings and parking lot between the Adirondack Artists Guild Fine Art gallery and ADK ArtRise.

Several buildings in the existing district have plaques on their walls commemorating their designation. Catania said it is up to property owners to purchase them, and that anyone interested can contact HSL to learn how to get one.

To read more about the historic district and HSL’s application, go to tinyurl.com/mw9ddu9m.