The request sounded simple enough: repair a heating and ventilation system stymied by a broken fan. But when The Armory Revival Co. recently fielded this call from a potential client, the property owner had already had several suppliers decline the project.
The building owner “had called four HVAC suppliers, and they all said, ‘I’m not going to try to get in to replace that fan, I’m just going to replace the unit,’ ” said Mark Van Noppen, Armory Revival Co.’s managing director.
And that’s just for a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. Old houses and commercial structures, meanwhile, are “a giant repair job,” Van Noppen said, and many owners would opt to replace the building’s original features than deal with the hassle of preserving them.
Armory Revival takes a different approach, with a focus on repairing and renovating historic buildings with an eye toward saving and re-creating the original features. But it’s a specialty that’s rare, Van Noppen says.
While there’s a shortage of trades workers who are skilled in modern building techniques, it’s even worse when traditional trades skills are needed. “There’s just a crisis in restoration carpentry right now,” Van Noppen said.
“The vast majority of the people working in the trades are focused on new construction, or renovations that don’t pay a lot of attention to the existing fabric of the building,” he said. “There’s a real inability to deal with the finesse of a lot of the historic features in a building.”
To address this shortage, Armory, along with fellow Providence restoration companies Casa Buena Builders Inc. and Heritage Restoration Inc., is partnering with the Providence Preservation Society for an eight-week workforce training program.
The program, Introduction to Preservation Trades, aims to equip unemployed or underemployed Rhode Islanders with the tools to scale up their beginner carpentry skills while learning how to preserve historic architecture.
The Providence Preservation Society pairs participants with one of the three local businesses, and – beginning in August – trainees will work alongside other craftspeople to learn the ropes of assessing, repairing and maintaining historic architecture.
These skills have particular relevance in Rhode Island, which has a “tremendous wealth of historic buildings,” says Kelsey Mullen, the society’s director of education.
Over the years, many cities have torn down their historic architecture due to urban renewal policies, Mullen said, or old buildings were lost to disasters. But Providence bucked that trend in many neighborhoods, and today, at least half of the buildings in the city are at least half a century old.
Preservation isn’t necessarily more difficult or expensive compared with replacement, Van Noppen says, but the work needed to preserve aging buildings does require innovative thinking and specialized skills.
This extra effort is part of the reason why many workers don’t bother with this aspect of the trades, paired with a misconception that learning historic preservation work is always an intensive, time-consuming pursuit, Van Noppen says.
One of the in-demand skills the training program will tackle is installing slate roofing. The process is “not much different than regular roofing – you just have to be shown how to do it,” Van Noppen said.
It requires knowledge of how to work with a specialized tool, a slate cutter, and “you can’t just drive a nail through slate,” as one would with traditional roofing, Van Noppen says. But it only takes an afternoon of practice to become proficient in the skill.
Other specialized skills the company can teach trainees include tile restoration, copper fabrication and metal work, though specialized carpentry skills remain the most important.
Armory Revival employees starting at the beginner level earn $15 per hour with benefits, Van Noppen says, and the same standard applies to those working for the Armory Revival through the workforce training program.
Preserving the state’s historic architecture is not just an aesthetic benefit, Mullen says, but it’s needed to keep the majority of the city’s buildings functional.
“Most people live, work, gather or learn in an old building,” Mullen said. “These are really important buildings that give us a sense of belonging and history but are also very much practical” for continued use.
In addition to adding to the preservation workforce, the Providence Preservation Society also intends for the program to help diversify the trade.
The program’s target audience of underserved groups – such as formerly incarcerated people, women and nonbinary individuals – may not see themselves reflected in the construction trades, Mullen said.
But with more involvement from these demographics, “we’ll start to see a different image of what it means to be working in the trades,” she added.