Jan 7, 2009
Breaking: Brace Building Partially Collapses
By: Kevin Buchanan
I’m hearing from multiple sources that the historic Brace Building at 8th Avenue & Magnolia, the site of a historic preservation/urban design scuffle between Comerica Bank and neighborhood leaders (including yours truly), has suffered a partial collapse late today. I’ve been told that there are windows broken on Magnolia and that part of the roof can be seen inside the building on the floor. I will be heading to the Brace Building shortly (likely just after 5:00 PM) to get photos, should anybody wish to take a look with me.
They probably overdid it on the pre-weakening in preparation for demolition.
Maybe they are trying to remove the tan bricks piecemeal and preserve the red bricks within, no?
If not pre-weakening, then is that demolition by neglect?
Isn’t that convenient? Buildings don’t just collapse. They need alot of help from bulldozers, dynamite, an impact with a Boeing 767, or someone taking off ½ of the exterior brick because they want to build an ugly drive-through bank.
@ AndyN: If it were, the worst that would happen is that they would be cited by code enforcement to commence with either 1) repair, or 2) demolition of the building. As far as I know this building has no local historic designation, so demo by neglect wouldn’t come in to play.
Re: I didn’t mean the code definition, I meant demolishing the building by not maintaining it.
Also, how new is this? It seems to me I remember seeing something hanging down inside a month or two ago. I haven’t seen what is currently being discussed. Does anyone have a picture? I can’t see the collapse in the picture above.
I have photos, but don’t have them online yet.
From what I’ve been told, this happened yesterday. The photo above is from late last year. The interior partially collapsed, second floor onto the ground floor, and there’s a beam or some other piece of structure sticking out a little through a window on Magnolia which shattered.
Oh, yeah.. That is more than what I remember.
I did get a new digital camera for Christmas and I look forward to posting some relevant pictures, but I’m working out of town right now, so I’ll have to wait for yours.
Yes, this is new, but from what I saw just driving by, it appears to be a rotted timber sticking out throught that front window.
When we first started this campaign to save the building, someone in the know told us that it had been sitting there with no roof ever since the last time we fought and won against its demolition several years ago, so it was probably too far gone to save.
Since the fallen wood appears to be rotted, that is probably the case. So its the prior owner we need to be jumping on for demolition by neglect, not Comerica.
JMO – SuMac