Did you see this story by Robert Gray in this week’s El Paso Inc.?
On Thursday, the El Paso County Historical Commission sent a pointed letter to the University of Texas System, after El Paso Inc. broke the news that Abraham had added another building to his collection, purchasing the historic Stevens Building from the UT System.
“We fear that the Stevens Building will be neglected like so many other buildings under this land owners possession, or worse, that it will be demolished and replaced by yet another empty lot,” the commission’s letter says.
They’re talking about the old Walgreen’s store downtown, at Mesa and Texas. The second-place bidder was the Borderplex Community Trust REIT.
So who do you suppose is more likely to demolish and replace that building with another empty lot? Mr. Abraham, who has never demolished a building downtown, or the Borderplex REIT, who demolished every other building on that half of the block, including a different Trost?
If Mr. Abraham hadn’t bought that building, it would probably already be a vacant lot.
According to the article in the Inc., the letter was written by Bernie Sargent, the chair of the El Paso County Historical Commission. Bernie Sargent is also the name of the chair of the City’s Bond Advisory Committee. I wonder if it’s the same guy.
Totally agree with you. The REIT has no more interest in historic preservation than Mr. Abraham, who prefers letting buildings fall down to tearing them down. At least it takes years for the old, well-built buildings to fall down. The REIT tore down the Trost building at the other end of this block. Maybe they wanted more real estate for a parking lot.