Quote:
Originally Posted by ScreamingViking
Blanchard (within whatever corporate clothes he's wearing) has proven himself to be a slum-lord. The buildings could have been sold to someone who may have actually done something with them -- and I realize real estate is a business -- but they were not. And now we get to hear all the excuses about why the city's directives could not be followed. His company should have been aware of the risks of buying such old buildings in the first place, and assessing risk is definitely a business process.
I don't blame the city for designating these, but that should have been done a long time ago. I do blame them for not being tough with these owners, because there don't seem to be any repercussions for allowing this kind of thing to happen. So why should they care?
What happens next to the now empty lots will be interesting to see. Will they be sold? Will the Hughson Business Space Corporation put forward yet another proposal? Will it get accepted by the city? If so, it'll get a rougher ride through approvals, I bet. How long will all this take?
As for Gore Park, we're lucky it's largely been returned to what it was before the debacle of the early 1980s. And we're also lucky it was never developed... I recall something about a very old proposal for a tower of some kind, which may have been to serve airships which never materialized as a widely adopted form of transportation. Had it happened, we'd probably still be debating whether it should be taken down or not (if it hadn't fallen down by now already)
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There are some renders I remember seeing of that tower.. they also wanted to demolish the entire downtown and replace it with like 100 story brutalist towers at one point in the past.. we've endured a lot. The cutting down of the trees was a gut punch though. It'll take decades for us to see what it used to look like - and they have opted for the park to just be grass now instead of the lush gardens it once was.. sad. But with the motley crew that wanders around there I guess I understand why..
Totally agree on all your points. All over the world the people are realizing the governing bodies just don't care about them, and the people have to make their voices known, in any way possible. We made our voices known the first time but the govt didn't care to see a proper solution through - now it's up to us to hold them accountable in future so this never happens again.
And yes, I am pretty sure a lot of the arson is intentional. The sad part is the rectangular ikea garbage that takes its place. Imo the only people that should even be ALLOWED to touch the historical areas are liuna or core urban.
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