A dozen people showed up this morning to witness the demolition of a fabulous City-owned building. YNN, Channel 2 and Fillmore District Council Member David Franczyk also stopped by the Brecker building today. By 2 pm crews were wrapping up for the day. Here's what remains after the first day of this $320,000 emergency demolition.
See the Brecker Building demolition flickr archive for additional pics.
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3 comments:
This is a very personal loss for me. To the City's credit, it held off on demolition for several years, but it wasn't sufficient to save it.
I'm less dismayed about the emergency demolition order than I am about the the broken process that brought the building to this point. When the City acquired it through tax foreclosure 2006, it was in amazing shape. In only five years the building deteriorated to the point that it was a major hazard to the public.
The absence of resources to mothball these valuable structures and ensure they can be reused eventually is the point of origin for this event.
We must do better.
$320,000 of public money -- wasted -- because the City did nothing during the last seven years that they owned it.
The government as trustee owes the duty of using the care of a reasonably prudent man in protecting the building against decay and deterioration caused by use, by the elements, by catastrophe, or otherwise.... Under the common law of trusts, the first duty of a trustee must be to preserve the property intact. To do this, he must not suffer the building to waste or diminish, or fall out of repair.
A government's failure to act reasonably to preserve the property will also support a claim for permissive waste, under the law of property.
Has anybody ever added up the amount Buffalo has spent on its buildings that could and should have be saved?
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