Fight The Blight!

Stop Letting Our Building Codes Erode

During the previous mayoral election, Lloyd Winnecke pledged to invest in Downtown Evansville. One of the first things he did was sold his house on the east side and move all of his worldly possessions into a condominium sized apartment overlooking Main Street. I applaud this decision.

Small and mid-sized apartments aren’t the only thing going up in Downtown Evansville. Although it has been a far cry from the 2001 master plan we were given, the area has also seen the city stick several million dollars into an arena, the riverfront, as well as the proposed Bi-Centennial Park. In fact, the city spent $4 million just to make the roads go both ways.

As with many other government goals, it now appears that one office doesn’t know what the other office is doing, or should I say seemly don't care. With the city sticking hundreds of millions of dollars into Downtown Evansville, one would think that they would at least want the buildings along the entrances to downtown to be up to code. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t happening.

Recently, I drove through Downtown Evansville a few days ago. I took a quick stroll down Main Street, which is the main gateway out of Downtown Evansville from the Ford Center. On this road alone, I saw numerous buildings that make Evansville look like Detroit. If you head north on Main Street from the Civic Center, you will see a vacant store front that once housed Frontier Liquor but still appears to be operational as a storage area for limousines. As I approached the building, I noticed an outdoor part of the roof had been caving in for quite some time. How this roof has not fallen into the small parking lot and then into the streets I will never know.

When the Executive Inn rubble was left in one big pile of rubble after Klenck Demolition Company walked off the job, our city ran franticly to block it off from the public and ordered the rubble be removed immediately. Right now, we have a street that has dilapidated buildings and they have been allowed to sit standing in the open.

Building codes aren’t just about rebuilding Downtown Evansville or even keeping it in an acceptable condition. Rather, these codes were put in place for safety. As of today, any pedestrian can simply walk up to and/or by these buildings that are in dangerous conditions. Is that really good public policy?

The buildings on Main Street are just the tip of the iceberg. Many homes in the districts surrounding Downtown Evansville are even worse than these two buildings. This begs the question, why has our city allowed our building codes to erode? How often are these buildings and houses being inspected? Does the city have a plan for bringing all buildings up to code? I find this situation to be extremely hypocritical given that a building on Division Street that was never condemned and not even close to being in the same shape as the buildings on Main Street is being demolished entirely.

It makes absolutely no sense to invest in Downtown Evansville if we aren’t going to enforce the building codes. If you were from out of town and you were going to an event at the Ford Center, would you hang around Downtown Evansville after the event if you saw these types of buildings on your way in? If you were running the city, would you want visitors walking up to and around these types of structures? If we are going to invest in Downtown Evansville, we simply cannot let our codes erode.

For this reason, I have fired up yet another blog and given it the goal of cleaning up Evansville’s blight. This new blog, titled “Fight The Blight!” will begin its task by lobbying for fair and effective building code enforcement as well as cleanup of abandoned structures. It will also work on addressing the enormous blight in the 3^rd Ward neighborhoods just north of the Lloyd Expressway and slightly west of the old Hercules Motor Plant by lobbying to include these areas in programs such as Front Door Pride, Keep Evansville Beautiful Committee future beautification projects, and the EPA’s Jacobsville remediation plan (there will be another article addressing this goal). You will be able to view pictures of both of these areas on the blog as well as receive updates on any improvements taking place.

Last but most importantly, I want to stress that I am not proposing the continuation of the mayor’s demolition of all things old policy that we have seen carried out on Divison Street and at the corner of First Avenue and Morgan Avenue. Yes, there will be some buildings that are not up to code that will need to be demolished. But at the same time, there are a lot of buildings with value in both Downtown Evansville and the Third Ward that need to be preserved, renovated, and kept in good standing with our local codes.

To accomplish this task, I have already stopped by the office of the City Preservation Officer, Dennis Au, to let him know about the goal of cleaning these areas up while preserving our valuable buildings at the same time. One of the greatest things our city has accomplished was bringing the Pagoda up to code (I also want to thank the Kunkel Group for the work they have done on the old Knights of Columbus Hall)…

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I appreciate the 80,000 + visitors who have supported the 4 other blogs- EvansvilleMovingForward.blogspot.com, RememberRobertsStadium.blogspot.com, EvansvilleRail.blogspot.com, & AGraveInjustice.blogspot.com. With your continued support, I believe we can accomplish the goal of getting Downtown Evansville completely up to date with our building codes and on its way to a completely safe, revitalized, and marketable area in our city. Every building on every road should be up to code!