Small Town Gentrification... and Common Sense?

With the new year, our little town is once again on the move!

In passing I may have mentioned that located opposite the parking lot that has been causing such a scandal with its new park-for-pay system, there is a professional office building dating back to the 1940s — which, incidentally, also was the offices of my recent therapist — which was on a parcel of land that had recently been sold, and plans had been in the works to knock down the office building and build 4-story luxury hotel.

The controversial parking lot, now mostly empty in protest!

While not historical, there was a considerable opposition to knocking down this building because it was — to some degree — architecturally interesting but it was not old enough to fall under the historical register protection.

Meanwhile, the proposed building was causing a great deal of controversy because the plan was to put up an 80-100 room hotel, but it only would have 19 dedicated parking spaces. I don't know on which planet that makes sense but somehow that was the proposal.

As it turns out the demolition and building plans were somehow approved as part of a whole bunch of different plans for new construction for 2026 and last time I was downtown I noticed that the venerable professional building was in the process of being demolished.

"There goes the neighborhood," you might say! Or is it "progress is inevitable?"

I suppose even small historical towns often suffer from the inevitable creep of gentrification that is seen pretty much across the world.

The hotel will stand precisely at the edge of the historical district, right next to the closest historical building from the 1880s. I have not seen actual schematics as to how well the architecture will fit in with its surroundings but based on the ongoing discussions on local message boards whatever is being put there does not seem to be popular with a lot of residents.

Meanwhile, aforementioned parking problem persists. The equity company building the hotel claim they can't dig down and build an underground garage for the hotel because that takes them below sea level so that's not an option.

I suppose they are going to contract with the owners of the shopping center with the controversial parking lot and have the hotel guests park across the street in the retail parking lot. I can't imagine the merchants in the shopping centre being very happy about that because there's a considerable gap between 19 and 80-100.

Regardless, it'll be very interesting to see how it unfolds and what circus will take place in our local City Council which seems to be singularly determined to not listen to input from the general public. I guess we just live in an era of "money talks!"

I cam to this town almost 20 years ago for its quality of life, and I have to admit that I don't much like the direction is has taken in the course of the past 5-6 years.

Thanks for visiting, and feel free to leave a comment — engagement is always welcome!

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