McKinney Historic Board Reviews Three Demolition Requests in Historic Neighborhoods
The owner of a 1950s ranch house at 803 Largent Street is asking McKinney's Historic Preservation Advisory Board for permission to tear it down. He argues the home has deteriorated past the point where repair makes financial sense. City staff disagree. The board will take up the request Thursday, Nov. 5, along with two smaller demolition requests for a detached garage on Tucker Street and a metal shed on Cole Street. Staff recommend approving those two.
All three properties are in McKinney's historic preservation overlay district. Under the city's zoning rules, an owner there needs a certificate of appropriateness before demolishing any exterior feature that can be seen from a public street. According to city staff, the board evaluates these requests by weighing the federal Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation against each property's preservation priority rating. Those ratings of high, medium or low come from the city's 2023 Historic Resource Survey. All three properties on Thursday's agenda are rated medium priority.
A house the survey upgraded
According to the staff report, the Largent Street home was built around 1950. It has an inset porch between the house and its attached garage, exposed rafter tails and paired one-over-one windows. The city's 2015 survey rated the home low priority. A 2023 survey raised it to medium. Staff say the change reflects the property's greater age and the significance of its architectural style.
Owner Jack Ferrell's application blames severe neglect by the former owners. His letter of intent says they lived in the house from the 1970s until he bought it in April 2025. The staff presentation lists the damage. The concrete foundation is uneven and the perimeter footing is fractured. Wood floor framing in the crawlspace is largely rotted, and the center living and dining areas have dropped several inches. The roof sags, the interior has mold and moisture damage, and termites are still active. An April 2026 inspection included in the application attributes the poor lot drainage to water coming from the adjacent property.
Staff acknowledge the structural problems but still recommend denial. They conclude the request fails four of the federal rehabilitation standards because demolition would remove every character-defining feature of the house. Staff also note that the proposal does not attempt any repairs or salvage of historic materials.
The cost argument
The board first considered the request at its Sept. 3 meeting and voted to table it. Since then Ferrell has filed a second submittal. He says it responds to the board's request for more evidence of an effort to rehabilitate the building. For it, he cut a second opening in the floor at the opposite end of the house so the foundation company could inspect more of the crawlspace. The company concluded that all beams, joists and rim joists would need to be replaced before a new subfloor could go in. The structural engineering report cited in the submittal also says the entire system would have to be exposed and replaced. Removing a section of vinyl siding showed that the vinyl had been covering flaking lead-based paint on the wood siding underneath, which would add abatement costs to any repair.
The submittal compares two contractor estimates: $403,175 to remodel the existing home and $277,470 to build a new house with about 1,055 square feet of air-conditioned space, 1,500 square feet in total. That is a difference of about $125,700. Ferrell also cites six recently remodeled two-bedroom, one-bath homes in the historic district and argues that rehabilitation would cost far more than the structure would be worth on the market. These figures come from the applicant, not the city. Some line items in the remodel estimate are still preliminary, and the estimate notes that certain framing repair costs depend on engineering that has not yet been done.
Ferrell has also included preliminary plans for a replacement home. They call for a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath ranch-style house with a second story, horizontal wood plank siding, windows scaled to the existing home and more than 320 square feet of covered porch. The submittal says the plans have not been finalized or submitted to the city. Under the city's historic preservation guidelines, properties in the historic district need a certificate of appropriateness before a building permit can be issued. Any new house on the lot would therefore go through its own review.
Two outbuildings and a process under review
The other two requests are smaller. At 907 Tucker St., owner Greg Hartman wants to demolish a detached carport and garage behind a circa-1915 Arts and Crafts home. Sanborn maps from 1920 show a garage in the same spot, but staff say no records definitively date the current structure. At 1104 Cole St., owner Sydne Stephens is asking to remove a modern metal shed behind a circa-1910 National Folk-style house. Staff found the shed was brought onto the property after 2022. Both owners submitted photos documenting structural deterioration. In both cases staff recommend approval and say removing the outbuilding should not change the main home's priority rating.
The board will also discuss how it reviews demolition requests in general. According to the agenda item, board members asked for more direction on evaluating these cases, and staff studied the processes used in other cities. The staff proposal would leave the board's review process unchanged but add a recommended set of documents for demolition applicants. That set includes a structural engineering report covering the foundation, a list of past repairs and their results, photos of every exterior side and every interior room, a documented history of the property and a list of materials that could be salvaged. The current application asks for items such as a letter of intent, elevations, a site plan, a floor plan and photographs. Under the proposal, a certificate would be issued if the board approves, and an applicant who is denied could pursue the city's appeals process.
The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the City Council Chambers at City Hall, 401 E. Virginia St. Anyone who wants to speak on an agenda item must give a "Request to Speak" card to the clerk before the meeting. Each speaker gets three minutes per item. The full agenda is posted on the city's website.
