1611 Main Street met the wrecking ball Sept. 21. (Harry Wilonsky)
Glad to see Dallas City Hall stepping up yesterday to try to avoid more demolitions of historic structures downtown. In case you missed the latest developments, city staff and Preservation Dallas will compile a list of all historic downtown buildings that don’t have city landmark designation. That list will be presented to the City Council in the next two weeks at which time, presumably, members will decide what they want to do.
Among the council members who have already spoken up are Philip Kingston and Vonciel Jones Hill, who made their point of view clear during yesterday’s Arts, Culture & Libraries Committee meeting:
“Stop tearing them down, period,” Jones-Hill said, “and then designate which ones we really think never need to be torn down.”
“I want to make sure we don’t lose another one we don’t want to lose,” Kingston said.
Good for them.
Late September was a devastating time — literally — along Main and Elm streets, where four historic buildings were knocked down as part of the Joule hotel’s retail expansion.
During yesterday’s editorial meeting, in which we sketched out plans for our pages this week, I suggested we come out in support of instituting a moratorium on the demolition of historic buildings downtown for at least six months to explore how to strike a better balance. (My idea didn’t make the cut — largely because our pages are justifiably chock full of candidate recommendations this week. But I’ll keep trying — this story isn’t going away.)
Today’s news report on the Monday committee meeting indicated that the council may not be able to put a temporary hold on demolitions without designating the entire Dallas Downtown Historic District off-limits. Robert Wilonsky’s report says that would require the OK of three-fourths of the council. He also had some good information here on what is and is not protected in the city.
Some will say that getting three-fourths of the council to agree on something is a tall order. But in this case, what’s the downside? Do we really want downtown development if it can’t work within the boundaries of preserving what’s “preservable” of our city’s history? So many developers have done it well. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for others to follow suit.
So Dallas City Council, how about it? Find a way to postpone any more demolitions for six months and find a better solution than this one.