Told ya so...

Fix it, and send the bill to the rich guy who willfully neglected it and let it all fall down. If anybody thinks the damage is not the result of recent neglect, go look at the buildings housing Bearno's and Doc Crow's in the same block.

THIS.

Fix it, and send the bill to the rich guy who willfully neglected it and let it all fall down. If anybody thinks the damage is not the result of recent neglect, go look at the buildings housing Bearno's and Doc Crow's in the same block.

THIS.

Attitudes like this makes it crazy for anyone to buy an old building in this town. These building have been left to rot for decades and the best plan is to stick the last guy with the bill?

The so called "urban renewal" fad can be blamed for much of the waste land that is the City of Louisville. Then the power of government forcibly evicted owners and tore down their buildings because they didn't look nice enough.

Now the power of government forces owners to leave their property to sit fallow, because it's uneconomic to develop because the new uses might not be pretty enough for some folks.

Progress!

I say save what you can of the facades to incorporate into new construction.

Look: Bill ALL the property owners who let them decay, not just Blue. Sue their butts.

I'm guessing you can't sue someone retroactively if they didn't violate codes existing at the time of their ownership.

Ignoring the shrill-cane-pounding cries for justice for the moment and returning to the land of pragmatism and common sense...

If one takes the news report at face value, i.e. that "the cost to stabilize the century old buildings is multiple times more than original estimates" and one assigns a value to this statement...just for giggles lets say that "multiple" as used in the above statement means three. The question that pops into my mind is...At -what- point does the project become economically unfeasible. In other words, it's one thing to restore the buildings and charge a tenant $ per square foot, it's another thing entirely to sink all that money into the project and expect to find the same pool of tenants who are now willing to pay $$$ for that square footage.

BTW...and I acknowledge it's often standard operating procedure when disseminating unpleasant news...does anyone find it even -remotely- curious that the first (major) public acknowledgement of funding "issues" came on the Friday before Derby. Talk about slipping in the back door...Hope ya'll didn't leave your wallets on the kitchen table.

Absolutely correct in theory, Chris. Sadly, though, in practice this rarely happens. Look at the Kentucky International Convention Center, the Marriott - or, just as significantly, downtown's acres of parking lots.

Or looked at another way, should willful neglect of real property be ignored or even rewarded? If one of your neighbors allowed his house to fall into disrepair, would you want the city to step in?

I am largely of the opinion that as long as it is within the boundaries of the law, people should be allowed to do whatever they want with the property they own. Including tearing it down. If the preservationists wanted to keep those buildings so badly they should have bought them and fixed them up themselves, not tried to make someone else do it for em. Funny how happy they are to spend OTHER people's money.

We are overly enamored with making sure Louisville looks the same as it did in 1920. I don't want to live in 1920. I want to live in 2012.

Besides, comparing the potential appearance of a mixed use development with a convention center and a chain hotel is hardly fair. One is concerned with maximizing interior space in a limited footprint and the other is a bizarre mixed mess forced upon it by preservationists. Architects can only do what they can do within the limitations placed upon them.

There are plenty of beautiful new buildings in Louisville and elsewhere. There is no reason that block couldn't be an example of yet another. Though if you had thrown in Museum Plaza as an example of the current thinking in architecture I'd have agreed with you 100%.

Thank God that monstrosity fell through.

We are overly enamored with making sure Louisville looks the same as it did in 1920. I don't want to live in 1920. I want to live in 2012.

Besides, comparing the potential appearance of a mixed use development with a convention center and a chain hotel is hardly fair. One is concerned with maximizing interior space in a limited footprint and the other is a bizarre mixed mess forced upon it by preservationists. Architects can only do what they can do within the limitations placed upon them.

There are plenty of beautiful new buildings in Louisville and elsewhere. There is no reason that block couldn't be an example of yet another. Though if you had thrown in Museum Plaza as an example of the current thinking in architecture I'd have agreed with you 100%.

Thank God that monstrosity fell through.

Sure, there's no reason the east end of Whiskey Row couldn't have beautiful, modern construction. Same for any other dilapidated historic property in Louisville.

On your scenario, though, there's also no reason it couldn't be yet another surface parking lot, of which we already have too many.

Louisville has torn down way too much of its past. We used to have grand architecture on par with many of the great cities of the world. Now only a few examples remain and even they're in danger.

I don't want to live in 1920 either, but I also don't want to live in a city that forgets its past. I don't want to live in a city where we are so arrogant that we think that ourselves and our short-term profits are the only things that matter, at the expense of the legacies of those who have lived here before us.

I don't want to live in 1920 either, but I also don't want to live in a city that forgets its past. I don't want to live in a city where we are so arrogant that we think that ourselves and our short-term profits are the only things that matter, at the expense of the legacies of those who have lived here before us.

Thank you, Jeff; that is brilliant and I wholeheartedly agree.