[prairieman]

This little bit of the story seems to have missed some folks:
"Demolition started Friday in part because of the Roosevelt Action Association letter, which showed the groups were no closer to a compromise, said Larry Lazarus, a land-use attorney representing Circle on Central.

The developer also had heard rumors of litigation to protect the building(emphasis mine), he said. Finally, the city's Historic Preservation Commission listed items related to the building on its Monday agenda, Lazarus said.

"We weren't sure what they were going to do, if anything," he said."


If there had been litigation, the project would have stopped, pure and simple. From a business point of view, better to get rid of the building and deal with any ensuing litigation later, while the new project is underway. I'm not condoning it, but for the developer, having a neighborhood group which has done nothing all these years to protect a building and suddenly act as if it were the Mona Lisa being defaced and stopping my project because they were not proactive years ago is reason enough to go ahead with the demo.