In the Record today Mike Fitzgerald touches on the issue of Stockton’s Downtown now that redevelopment is dead. “Where there’s will there’s way for downtown’s carcass”
It is a subject that I find to be a must discuss. Just a few years ago the city under a former City Manager, Stockton was in the mode of “Tear it Down, They will Build” which resulted in destuction of several businesses downtown plus the loss of interesting architecture.
I guess beauty is indeed relative. At that time the perception from here was that beauty was based only on the dollars a property brought to the city coffers. If there is no significant revenue because the property was rundown or unused, it needed to be replaced with a parking lot. Said parking lot might bring in more revenue and would be considered ready to build on with minimal demolition expense to the new project.
Totally a wrong approach, IMO. The face of a city is what can make it warm and fun to visit. Imagine beauty of the former Mervyn’s Building in Hayward with its build to the sidewalk approach. It is an ugly utilitarian building on a main thoroughfare for all to see. It does not fit in with anything in the community and now thart it stands empty brings no revenue to the city.
That is the way of a city. Consider the building Stockton recently bought in a fire sale from a bank. The building was built by one of the largest S&L operations in the country. We should also know that American Savings was in the forefront of the S&L debacle. it is considered one of the largest Bank Failures in the country As a reult it went from a corporate headquarters to a WaMu bank branch. A few years later the huge bank called WaMu was declared insolvent and was taken over by an East Coast bank, Chase.
All of these companies seemed strong and failed to the point that the building became an asset to divest for the sake of efficiency.
When we continue to build our city, we need to consider what the future will be when the existing owner/builder/occupant ceases to exist, as it most certainly shall. Will the now empty building be an asset to market for more business or will it be an ugly cube on the sidewalk, like the UniFirst Laundry operation on Hunter St, across from Eden Park. No Garden of Eden there.
While I understand where you are coming from with this post I must disagree with some aspects of it. First off let me begin by saying I love Stocktons rich archetectual history. I live in the midtown area in a nearly 100 year old house. I enjoy walking and driving through downtown if nothing else just to look at the mezmerising buildings. I love the fact that in the older parts of Stockton the houses are seperate from our garages, I believe this makes for good neighbors, you see we cant just click our garage door open, park our cars and walk in the side door of our homes. Those of us fortunate enough to live here get out of our cars and walk to our doors and talk to our neighbors, detached garages make for a social neighborhood, but I digress.
You state ” If there is no significant revenue because the property was rundown or unused, it needed to be replaced with a parking lot.” I think you forgot one important aspect of buildings, they all have a useful life. Buildings can only last so long before they become more costly to maintain than to rebuild. McDonalds does tear downs not because they want to, but because in reality the electrical, plumbing and others are no longer working properly and it gets so costly that its actually cheaper to rebuild than to keep fixing. There is also the fact that communities grow and change, where there was once a hub of excitement around the Port during the gold rush til the early 1950′s there was a need for all the hotels in Downtown, now there is not a need.
Many of the buildings in downtown are magnificent and if we can keep some of them then more power to us, however we must also think of how we can repurpose and engage people to come back to the city’s core. Some buildings would cost more to change their use and bring up to codes than they would ever be worth. These building are filled with cancer causing chemicals, no where close to being up to ADA or other building codes. The mortar on the bricks is fragile at best and completely dangerous. While growing up in Lodi my dad was a plumber and his company along with several others were trying to save what is now known as Cactus Cantina. While everyone was diligently working to save the building and repurpose it, it collapsed on my dads friend, killing him. There comes a point when we have to weigh the cost. We cant just have empty, buildings that are falling down because we want to preserve all history. We have to pick and choose which building are cost effective and worthy of saving.
Now onto your point about the UniFirst building at Eden Square. While I understand that its somewhat awkward for an industrial style building to be in a downtown location, I really dont have a problem with this building or its use and here is why. 1) it brings many jobs to a neighborhood that needs jobs. 2) its close to housing thus making it an almost green business… you dont have to drive to and from work, you can walk. 3) keeping with the green thing, its close to it major customers (St. Josephs and Dameron, someone has to supply linens and uniforms) 4) I think as a company they did good on the Architecture of this building with its brick work and its arched window and while it is distinctly modern it at least used history to architecture to fit into the community. I have asked around and was told that the old building on that block is actually the old building that they worked out of before building and growing into the new building and I appreciate that they didnt leave Stockton and made all attempts to fit into the neighborhood.
So, while I disagree, I agree that we need to try to save what we can and if we can tear down some blight, eyesores or dangerous buildings in order to build a strong core then lets do that, but we must save the personalities of the downtown core. Lets require that they use the archecture of the past in the future desins of the downtown. Lets get people living in Downtown again, lets get business to thrive there.
Not one word of disagreement.
I would like to clarify that I agree there is useful life. I also believe that tearing down a building of a type that has been salvaged in other communities is not a good preemptive move towards rehabilitation of a neighborhood. It is open to discussion after realistic interest is made for the site, but, please, do not demolish before.