Jonathon Morris, U.S. Army Ranger Ret. and Rowan Rescue Rancher
♦ I was heartened to read yesterday that Salisbury achieved a national award of sorts by being proclaimed the “per capita” 9th ranked most dangerous city in North Carolina. Finally an award that isn’t bogus. 9th ranked most dangerous city in North Carolina is really saying something. A lot of young heads will be able to swagger down Long Street and proclaim: “I’m from the Bury–we’re number 9.”
http://rowanfreepress.com/2015/04/28/salisbury-n-c-ranked-9th-most-dangerous-city-in-north-carolina/
But what really blew me away was reading that Sen. Andrew Brock and Sen. Robert Rucho’s Senate Bill 472 sailed through the N.C. Senate. That bill will nail the coffin shut on the “N.C. Historic Preservation Tax Credits”. Good riddance. Tell those itinerant carpenters to pack up and go back to their “Murphy Man” hovels in South Carolina.
“I really feel like a lot of buildings just won’t be done at all,” said Paul Woodson, quoted by the Salisbury Post’s Josh Bergeron. “If they don’t bring back the historic tax credits, I don’t think the Empire Hotel will ever come to fruition. I don’t think anybody would do it.”
Woodson sounded strangely clear-headed in his assessment. The Empire Hotel rotted away with its flophouse doors closed to the public since 1963. City hall muscled a consortium of banks to buy it in 2007 and they’ve marketed this bat-infested toilet for the better part of 8 years now. No go.
Yeah if they don’t bring back the historic tax credits, Mayor Woodson had chain lightening in his mind when he doubted the Empire would ever come to fruition. DURR! Has it taken Woodson 4 years to realize the Bat Castle on South Main is headed for a land fill?
It seems with all the Federal and state tax credits and $200,000 in city grants, if the Empire Hotel did not “come to fruition” between 2007 and 2014, perhaps it’s simply not a building for the free market or even a government-subsidized market.
Has it ever occurred to City Hall’s Mind-Hive that some buildings just aren’t worth saving.
In a city where the most loopy ideas are celebrated as “Visonary”, perhaps Mayor Woodson has finally shown a rare spark with his latest musings about the future of the Empire Hotel. It’s an election year. So the imperiled incumbents need to step up big time. The opposition comes from the formerly disenfranchised with whom the current city council is way out of touch. The new guys on the block are arriving on the scene when a lot people see City Council needs to be “luxed”
Mayor Woodson could boldly lead a charge if he could muster the moxey to call a meeting of the Empire Hotel “stakeholders”—city council, DSI, the banks, and all the panhandlers who bed down in the rear. Woodson could tell them the city’s focus on “8 Block” is shifting to citizen security and crime prevention and the Empire Hotel project is officially off the projects list.
Woodson should encourage the stakeholders to schedule this eyesore for demolition or face condemnation proceedings to abate the blight. After all, the highest and best use for South Main is a much needed parking lot.
Tough times call for bold leadership, Mayor Woodson. So ditch your little millionaire tax break playpen idea, and give the West End community and the rest of the city outside of “8 block” something more than lip service.
