REPORT TO THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION
April 27, 2026
FROM: JENNIFER K. CLARK, AICP, Director
Planning and Development Department
BY: ASHLEY ATKINSON, AICP, Assistant Director
Planning and Development Department
SUBJECT
Title
Hearing to determine eligibility for listing on the Local Register of Historic Resources the property located at 1626 E Street (Assessor Parcel Number: 465-084-30T)
Body
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommend that the Historic Preservation Commission review the available evidence, hold the hearing and determine the property located at 1626 E Street (Assessor Parcel Number: 465-084-30T) not eligible as a Historic Resource on the local register.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The property located at 1626 E Street was built in 1968 for the Fresno Bee. It has been owned by the City of Fresno since 2021, and is proposed for demolition due to failed systems and other conditions in the building that render it infeasible for reuse. It was evaluated by a qualified firm in April 2026 and found eligible for listing in the California Register of Historic Resources (CRHR) under Criterion 1 and for the Fresno Local Register under criterion a(1)(i), for the theme of Urban Renewal in Fresno with a period of significance of 1969-1973, and for the theme of Communications in the Central Valley with a period of significance of 1969-1981. No significance was found under other criteria, including architectural merit; as such, staff is recommending that designation not be initiated, and that mitigations be undertaken to preserve the historic events with which the building is associated.
BACKGROUND
1626 E Street is located on a 29-acre site west of Downtown Fresno in the industrial and commercial corridor between California Highway 99 and the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks, and is surrounded by industrial and commercial uses. It was designed for the Fresno Bee as a newspaper printing and distribution facility with construction starting in 1968, and the Bee occupied the building until 2016. The Fresno Bee Plant was the first project as part of the West Fresno I redevelopment plan, a federally-approved urban renewal project, and the site had previously contained single-family homes deemed uninhabitable. The redevelopment was planned in partnership with the McClatchy Company, which founded the Fresno Bee and purchased the site after the housing previously located there was razed (Exhibit B).
The 100,000-square-foot building was designed by local firm Schoenwald, Thomas, Harris, Bode &
Blayney and housed the Fresno Bee’s new printing press and paper storage, as well as the KMJ Radio Station and Television Network. Phase I consisted of the central three-story that accommodated the printing press, newsprint storage, newsrooms and other core functions. A Phase II addition in 1973 created new offices and other facilities for staff, as well as a new lobby and executive offices. This addition completed the primary southern façade of the building. In 1990, an extensive addition designed by the local firm of Schoenwald, Oba, Mogensen, Pohll & Miller Inc. was initiated, which nearly doubled the size of the plant. The Historic Resource Technical Report identifies the style of the facility as New Formalism, a popular style for civic architecture between 1950-1970. The original design remains largely intact, with character-defining features such as the projecting roof slab, “Stonehenge” columns, louvered panels, and aluminum-frame glazing system and original materials including cement-panel cladding, marblecrete surface, and blue glasweld panels (Exhibit B).
The Fresno Bee was established in 1922 by Charles Kenney “CK” and Valentine Stuart “VS” McClatchy, the sons of James McClatchy, who immigrated from Ireland and went on to establish the Sacramento Bee. CK’s son, Carlos McClatchy, went on to serve as the Fresno Bee’s first editor and later established KMJ Radio, which went on air in 1925, and KMJ-Television, which began broadcasting to the San Joaquin Valley in 1953. The Fresno Bee’s first office was located at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Calaveras Street in Downtown Fresno. This six-story brick building was designed by the Beaux Arts trained, Sacramento-based architect Leonard F. Starks and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It is currently home to the Community Media Access Collaborative (CMAC) (Exhibit B).
Printing of the Fresno Bee was moved to Sacramento in 2017 and the McClatchy Company sold the building to the City of Fresno in April 2021.
ANALYSIS
Per the Fresno Municipal Code (FMC) Sec. 12-1606, Duties and Powers of the Commission, a primary duty of the commission is the “identification, designation and preservation of Historic Resources and Historic Districts owned by the city or located within the city limits.” Any building, structure, object or site may be designated as a Historic Resource if it is found by the Commission and Council to meet the Designation Criteria in FMC SEC. 12-1607:
(1) It has been in existence more than fifty years, and it possesses aspects of integrity to convey its significance based upon location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling or association, and:
(i) It is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
(ii) It is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
(iii) It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values; or
(iv) It has yielded or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
(2) It has been in existence less than fifty years, it meets the criteria of subdivision (1) of subsection (a) of this section and is of exceptional importance within the appropriate historical context, local, state or national.
The Historic Resource Technical Report notes that the Fresno Bee Plant was the most successful project under the West Fresno Phase I redevelopment plan, as the primary source of property tax revenue gains within a two-year span and that it was one of two successful urban renewal projects in the City of Fresno, with the Fashion Fair Mall as the second. As such, the report concludes that the Fresno Bee Plant meets CRHR Criterion 1 and Fresno Local Register Criteria A-1i for its association with the theme of Urban Renewal as defined by the City of Fresno Mid-Century Modernism Historic Context (Exhibit C). The report also concludes that given the building’s association with the McClatchy Company, it meets CRHR Criterion 1 and Fresno Local Register Criteria a(1)(i) under the theme of Communications with a period of significance of 1969-1981. However, it is important to consider that Urban Renewal is, in itself, an act of historical erasure that in this case eliminated housing for a lower-income and minority community that had already been impacted by the construction of State Highway 99.
As noted in the 2019 draft Downtown Fresno Displacement Report, “All of the land west of the commercial downtown and Southern Pacific Railroad line, which the report identified as the most racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Fresno, was found to be ‘Definitely Declining’ or ‘Hazardous’” for purposes of lending as of 1936, and thus could be considered subject to ongoing red-lining throughout the mid-century era. The fate of this area was cemented between 1961 and 1970 when the Federally-funded West Area I and II Projects removed housing between the railroad and the new Highway 99 to develop an industrial park that included the Bee facility. By the late 1960s, an estimated 454 families had been displaced by urban renewal projects in Fresno, 30% of which were families of color (Exhibit D). The Mid-Century Modernism Context notes that a number of companies relocated to this area including McKesson and Robbins, and McClatchy Newspapers, as well as existing businesses in the area constructing new larger facilities, effectively trading housing for low-income and minority residents for industrial development and job creation (Exhibit C). As such, the period of significance for the area between the 99 and the Southern Pacific tracks could be considered the era prior to the initiation of urban renewal in 1961, and the Bee facility would not be eligible as an example of this period.
No significance was identified under any other criteria. Regarding CRHR Criterion 2 and Fresno criterion a(1)(ii), association with the lives of significant persons, “the most significant individuals
associated with the building are CK McClatchy, founder of the Fresno Bee, and Carlos McClatchy, his
son who founded KMJ Radio and KMJ Television.” While they are in fact significant persons to local and regional media history, their association with a building is more closely tied to the original 1922 Fresno Bee building on Van Ness, where the Bee operated until the new facility was completed in 1968. By that time, CK McClatchy was retired and the KMJ radio and television stations had long been established. As such the Fresno Bee Plant is recommended not eligible under CRHR Criterion 2, nor is it eligible for local designation under criteria a(1)(ii) (Exhibit B).
Regarding CRHR Criterion 3 and Fresno criterion a(1)(iii), although the building’s integrity is intact, the report identifies other Fresno buildings that are more masterful examples of New Formalism as well as extant examples of urban renewal, such as the Fresno County Courthouse (Wagner & Associates 1966), the Midland Savings & Loan building (Eugene Houghman, AIA 1965) and the convention center. It concludes that Bee Plant is not considered to be the work of a master architect or architectural firm, nor does it display highly masterful characteristics of the New Formalism architectural style. Additionally, it is only briefly mentioned in the City of Fresno Mid-Century Modernism Historic Context statement. As such, it is not recommended to be eligible under CRHR Criterion 3 or local criterion a(1)(iii). As a building constructed in 1968, it does not have the potential to provide information about history or prehistory and is ineligible under CRHR Criterion 4 and local criterion a(1)(iv) (Exhibit B).
When the City purchased the building in 2021, its intent was to use the building to house the Department of Public Utilities, and some divisions moved into second-floor office space in June 2022. However, in June 2025, the building’s central air conditioning failed catastrophically and cannot be restored. The building’s main switchgear also catastrophically failed and needs complete replacement, and in March 2026 the building experienced a complete electrical failure and currently has no source of power. This would require a full rebuild to meet current seismic and ADA standards, making the reuse of the building for any party infeasible. The prohibitive cost of required capital improvements and ongoing maintenance, in addition to the physical limitations of a facility designed for newspaper publication, printing and distribution, have rendered the building obsolete. At this time, the City is proposing to demolish the existing structures. No specific future use is proposed, and any future development would be subject to separate and additional environmental review, as required.
Given the condition of the building and the changes it has already undergone, it is neither prudent nor feasible to protect it from substantial adverse change, as provided for by California Public Resources Code Sec. 5024.1. While the facility is associated with historic events related to Fresno’s urban renewal activity, and with regional media and communications, this history is better represented by other existing structures, including the original Fresno Bee building and the 1919 Fresno Republican Printery building at 2130 Kern Street, both on the National Register of Historic Places. Additionally, more significant undesignated examples of urban renewal exist elsewhere in the City, as extensively discussed in the City of Fresno Mid-Century Modernism Historic Context (Exhibit C). These examples include the Fulton Mall, the Fresno County Courthouse, and the Convention Center. As such, staff recommend that the evidence does not support determination that the Bee facility is eligible as a local historic resource, and that it is neither prudent nor feasible to protect this building.
While preservation of the building is infeasible, mitigation is both feasible and recommended. Mitigations could include historic resource documentation to Historic American Building Survey guidelines; an interpretive project to include oral histories and/or a historical display. Such a display could be housed at either the original Fresno Bee building on Van Ness and hosted by the City and CMAC; or at the Fresno Republican Printery building and hosted by the Fresno City & County Historical Society, which currently owns the building. Potential mitigations will be further evaluated during preparation of an environmental analysis.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The determination of eligibility is not a project for the purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), as it will not result in a direct or indirect change in the environment.
CONCLUSION
Based on the available evidence, staff recommend that the Historic Preservation Commission determine not to initiate designation of the property located at 1626 E Street (Assessor Parcel Number: 465-084-30T) as a Historic Resource on the local register.
ATTACHMENTS:
Exhibit A - Notice of Public Hearing
Exhibit B - Historic Resource Technical Report for 1626 E Street
Exhibit C - City of Fresno Mid-Century Modernism Historic Context
Exhibit D - Draft 2019 Downtown Displacement Report