I’m really taking the gloves off with this one.
This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. I think I speak for all of those who live or even travel to Flint that the rotting hulk of a building has proven to be more than just an eyesoreit’s become something of a hazard.
But before I get into how this pitiful excuse of a piece of architecture is affecting us today, let me give a little history on it.
It was built in 1968, and was used until 1997 when Kumar Vemulapalli purchased it as the National Bank of Detroit left the building, leaving it for the most part vacated. The final nail was put into the rotting coffin in 2001 when a poorly maintained water pipe burst and flooded the building, causing the building to be totally evacuated in 2002. The city of Flint saw how reprehensible the building was and condemned it in 2004, and in their infinite wisdom, decided to put up road barricades on First Street and Harrison Street as a measure to curb the fear of pieces of the dilapidated building falling onto passers-by and cars in 2007, and it is in this year when my disdain for the building came to a head.
One of things that annoy me to no end is wasted space. There is a prime piece of real estate right there and all we have to show for it is this monument to incompetence. I guess in a way, this building is the very essence of Flint: it was once used frequently for business and was the hub for an economic surge, but now stands lonely, withering and rotting from a lack of use. However, Flint is slowly but surely on the rise from this crippling recession, and with the turn of the economic climate, changes should be made to clean up Flint’s image, and if we want to do that, we need to make some physical changes to it as well.
One of the other things that really gets to me is, and again, I feel I speak for anyone who has driven on either Harrison or First streets, are the barricades that have been set up around the building on Harrison and First. I have nearly been hit by people who were attempting to turn on either Harrison or First, all because the barricade that is supposed to protect them, impairs their vision on either side of the street. If the city really had the safety of the denizens of Flint in mind, those barricades would be down tomorrow and the Towers the week after.
I have a challenge to anyone who reads this, especially if you serve as a member of the Flint City Council: take a stand and make a change to this. If the city is going to be generating all this extra revenue by bringing back parking meters, then perhaps we should look into seeing how much it would cost to either renovate or remove the building so the land that it sits on can be used for better uses, such as the establishment of a new business or other such structure. At bare minimum, it would get rid of the blind corner on Harrison and First, making that area safer to drive and walk on.
Either way, it’s time. We’ve let this building go for far too long, and in order for Flint to grow, we need to remove the dead weight and make some changes. Flint has already proven that they can make changes by creating the Rutherford Parking Structure and making renovations to the Riverfront Character Inn to accommodate student housing, not to mention the ongoing renovation to the Durant Hotel. Let’s add this to our “to-do” list.
Aaron can be reached at aaburch@umflint.edu.
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