The eve of destruction

The pending demolition of the Livestock building has generated more opposition — there’s an 11th-hour effort to save it — but the hotel project should draw more concern.

Not because the old hotel shouldn’t come down. The big question, especially in light of a generous public subsidy, is how this new Downtown hotel will be more successful than the last one.

The artist’s rendering shows a Courtyard by Marriott oriented toward the north, rather than the east. It’s a small thing — maybe it’s nothing — but maybe the new owners don’t want their guests looking east toward a couple of seedy blocks of Edmond Street.

This could be interpreted as a sign that while this project is a worthwhile venture, more needs to be done to revitalize Downtown and make the hotel successful for the long term.

By contrast, the stockyards industrial district has experienced a significant rebound from the depths of the 1993 flood. But the old Livestock building remains a vacant ruin that sticks out like a decayed tooth.

No one had the heart to tear it down or the money to fix it, so the building just continued to deteriorate while the area was revitalized around it. How trespassers didn’t burn it down is a small miracle.

Now a local business has purchased the building and plans to tear it down. While this is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone who feels strongly about St. Joseph’s beautiful architecture, the moment to save this building probably came and went 17 years ago when Triumph Foods arrived.

At this point, it’s hard to see the Livestock building being restored without an extremely generous public subsidy, something that’s hard to justify in a city where people are paying 4.25% more just for the privilege of flushing their toilets.

Then there’s the question of who’s going to occupy it after spending all that money. The building is located near an industrial zone, so people aren’t going to live or shop there. It would need a large commercial or government tenant to be viable. In this city and this market, that’s hard to envision.

In a sad way, this building defines St. Joseph. Edmond Eckel designed something magnificent that was allowed to fall apart. It’s time to move on and save other endangered buildings. There are still too many.