Now, the building is gone. Would this building have contributed to a new historic district? Could it have been rehabilitated using state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits? (McEagle listed a whopping $149.7 million in historic tax credits as revenue on its first-draft tax increment financing application.) Was this one of planner Mark Johnson's "legacy properties" identified for preservation? We'll never know, because McEagle has not divulged any of its preservation plans. We do know that this building sits in one of the projected "employment centers," so it could very well have been doomed anyway. Yet that's just a guess.
Citizens and their elected representatives contemplating a redevelopment agreement for McEagle's NorthSide project need facts that demonstrate commitment on the part of the developer to back up all of its promises about historic preservation. Meanwhile, the facts that speak loudest about commitment to saving historic buildings don't match the developer's promises.
Ravaged brick buildings, constant fires, collapsing walls, missing boards and dozens of sound historic buildings now forever lost seem like the antithesis of the carefully-planned preservation of "legacy" buildings described by McEagle's executives and NorthSide master plan author Johnson (of Civitas, Inc.). Certainly, this slipshod management belies Johnson's immense professional reputation and commitment to progressive, community-oriented planning ideals. It's hard for seasoned preservationists to believe that McEagle really wants to save historic buildings in the project area -- but that is what the company and its planner keep saying they want to do.
3 comments:
Disgusting!
Diamonds for dirt.
Mark Johnson met with the North Side CBA board when he was in town and told us he was hired help, has no decision-making authority but can only "try" to "influence" outcomes. Sad to see him turn in his platinum reputation for cash like any scrapper, but it is a hard hard year for the entire construction industry. In other news, brick thieves are working on the Clemens wall right now. We are obliged to photograph cold-eyed for the record, as we always do, yet burning with anger at this deeply uncivil waste.
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