This just in! The January emergency demolition of the Sacred Heart School at 198 Emslie Street not only broke hearts, it also broke the bank.
The emergency demolition of the landmark building reportedly cost taxpayers a cool $125,000. Economic return on the investment? Zero. While few doubt the necessity of the demolition in light of its collapsing brick facade and the imminent threat the building posed to human safety, fewer still believe the school’s “demolition by neglect” was inevitable.
Buffalo is at the cross-hairs of continuing economic struggle and an invigorated comprehension of the revitalization resource of the city’s historic architecture. The redevelopment of certain historic resources is being realized, but hundreds of opportunities persist in going unnoticed. The Sacred Heart School is one example, one of those buildings that, if only the foresight had been there ten or fifteen years ago, might have been sealed up and saved for a better day, set aside for some future entrepreneur who would have seen what others now see: economic potential. Lofts. Offices. Gallery space. Who knows? Now, we’ll never know what might have been.
Thirty years of neglect is a difficult situation to arrest, particularly in eleventh hour scenarios. When historic landmarks are literally crumbling into the street, which is what occurred in this case, immediate remedies are elusive. As economic opportunities like the Sacred Heart School pass us by, however, others come into greater focus. Hefty demolition tabs are putting a spotlight on the urgent need to preserve now the restoration potential of character buildings far in advance of preservation crises. The threatened Sacred Heart Church (above), which stands tenuously adjacent to the now demolished school, may be a test of the community’s ability to preserve economic value while there is still a fighting chance to reverse the “inevitable.”
Related posts:
- High winds bring bad news to school building The neglected Sacred Heart School, located at Emslie Street and...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:53 am
[...] are: PHENY N.Y. Nine of LA La Lidy Meijers and Helga Fast (Posterholt); Figure of Sky RV Ritoe Architecture, Urbanism and Infrastructure (Delft), The Butterfly Maarten van Tuijl, Tom Berg Foot, Naoko Hikami [...]