I made what I thought was a hopeful comment about being able to salvage part of the building vs. just assuming it would be a total loss. Ozone replied with that bit about arguing with a fencepost, so I figured he was taking the opposite stance about trying to salvage part of the building. The latest news about Ice Blocks (via Twitter at 6 PM tonight) is that the concrete portions of the building may be salvageable (Buildings 1 and 4), but the brick portion (the oldest part in the middle) is a total loss and most if not all of the interior wood is gone.
There are plenty of problems with the East End office complex, but #1 is the total lack of interest by the state in pursuing any sort of programming in a space that was clearly designed for public programming--concerts, street fairs, farmer's markets, any sort of activity. On weekends Capitol Avenue gets so little traffic that it would be trivially easy to block off the street and have festival events take place on the two-block streetscape, smaller in scale than Capitol Mall but larger than what would be possible even blocking off a downtown street. But DGS has no interest in utilizing the buildings outside of office hours, aside from their agreement with the city to use its garage as public parking. Even some tables with umbrellas would provide some respite and a place to sit.
Lots of interesting stuff underway, recently constructed, or on the drawing board. Can't say I like all of it, but I like a lot of it.
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"Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings."--Jane Jacobs
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