Revive the core
Three major but expensive projects are key to central downtown revival
For far too long, there has been decay at the core of this city. Even as secondary buildings in the downtown business district found welcome new life as residential centers, some key landmark structures drifted.
Now, one developer has taken on two major challenges that could reverse that course. A third daunting effort involves an investment group. Governments — properly focused on the fortunes of the city, not of entrepreneurial individuals — should try to help.
Developer Rocco R. Termini is facing a huge task in trying to rehabilitate the Lafayette Hotel and the former AM&A’s department store, both located downtown and requiring a huge financial lift that will need some amount of public funding to accomplish.
A separate and equally challenging effort by the investment group seeks to breathe new life back into the Statler.
Objections already have been raised over the concept of public funding going into Termini’s projects, and if New Buffalo Statler Redevelopment — which narrowly met requirements for a nonrefundable deposit — asks for public assistance, there undoubtedly will be a similar reaction.
It is not the business of government to thoughtlessly “unlevel the playing field,” as some have noted. But it is the business of government to breathe life back into the community, and if that takes incentives or breaks for projects attempting to do the same for buildings essential to the larger effort, careful consideration must be given.
There can be no argument over the importance of these three sites, which depends at least as much on their location as it does on their history or architecture. And there is no question of their decay. Recently, a chunk of cornice fell from the Statler; luckily, no one was hurt. AM&A’s long has been a crumbling eyesore that has racked up so many building code violations over time that each new owner could barely keep up with the amount of shoring up required by that multibuilding complex.
There’s no telling yet whether or not these development dreams will translate into reality; feasibility, costs and details have yet to be studied completely. But the involvement of local developers is a plus. Termini, for example, has had numerous successes in renovating old industrial and commercial buildings, bringing dramatic transformations from concept to reality. His buildings currently provide residential housing for large numbers of people who wanted to live downtown.
At AM&A’s, he would have a key Main Street building — one with an architectural history blurred by major alterations and years of decay, but with the potential to become an asset rather than an eyesore at the very center of downtown. Whoever takes on this project and whatever it becomes, the city or other governments and agencies will be called on to help — and should do what they prudently can, considering the drag on urban recovery this site has been.
In considering what can be done at the Hotel Lafayette, Termini is considering the future of a beautiful building, almost as centrally located and the only surviving public building designed by America’s first female professional architect, Louise Blanchard Bethune. But it’s also a building damaged, especially inside, by years of absentee landlord neglect.
The Statler, alone, is anticipated to require $100 million to renovate, and that’s after the $1.3 million purchase price is settled. So far, New Buffalo Statler Redevelopment has paid roughly $500,000 and has invested about $750,000 in the building and its operating expenses.
Public financial participation in these projects must be considered carefully. But it should not be ruled out, by any means. The aid agencies involved should be wary of enriching developers, but they exist to enrich communities — financially through economic development, of course, but saving cultural treasures plays a role in that, too.
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