What to do with the Lafayette building? Preservationists, city officials at odds

What is to be done to the vacant, abandoned Lafayette building? Preservationists and city offices have differing views.

Excerpt:

In an era when people are concerned about the environment, saving old buildings seems wiser than building new ones, says Karen Nagher, president of the nonprofit group Preservation Wayne.

"You can make them look better, and they can be serviceable," Nagher said. "It's a far greener thing to do than tearing it down, dumping it in a hole, turning it into a surface parking lot and never doing anything with the property again."

But George Jackson, president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and the city's chief development officer, said hard realities dictate that the Lafayette Building come down.

Jackson said the DEGC has tried for years without success to put together a redevelopment deal for the Lafayette. And new developers showing interest in the site want a cleared piece of land to build upon, not an old building, he said.

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