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I have lost count of how many times I have, in great sadness, gazed upon the demolition of a beautiful old building. While a problem throughout America, it is a particularly vexing one in old Rust Belt cities like Altoona.
The pattern has been repeated so often. An older structure, often slowly at first, begins to slide -- an old couch on the porch, peeling paint, a broken attic window. Still habitable but deteriorating, renters and owners, especially absentee slumlords, allow the property to drift further toward a more blighted state of affairs. Windows, doors, siding, porches and roofs fall into disrepair, as occupants allow more trash to accumulate and the yard to become overgrown.
Owners stop investing in repairs, the worst of them suck the last signs of life out of the building, collecting as much rent as they can until the property is uninhabitable. The building becomes structurally compromised and finally gets to a point that the cost of demolition is more than the cost of rehabilitation, and much easier.
Frequently, the owner most responsible for allowing the deterioration in the first place stops paying taxes. This forces complete abandonment -- of both occupants and ownership.
To make matters worse, a notable portion is further complicated by the institutionalization or death of someone connected to the property. Commercial and institutional buildings can end up in a similar cloud of uncertainty when it closes or dissolves.
When ownership is unclear or problems arise settling the estate or closing the entity, determining responsibility and resolving payment typically becomes very difficult. Many months, sometimes even years, can pass as the municipality tries to resolve the muddled mess. The deterioration gets worse, making rehab even more unlikely.
With the cost of demolition increasing, architecturally interesting buildings being lost forever and the number of non-taxed vacant parcels growing, rehabilitation seems much more attractive.
In response, the City of Altoona's Redevelopment Authority and Land Bank Board recently announced their intentions to refurbish, rather than raze, abandoned buildings as often as possible.
The move to renovating such properties is a positive policy change, not just because of the economic and social pluses it brings to the city, but also because of the environmental benefits.
Building Magazine reports that demolition generates 155 pounds of waste per square foot. That's over 1,100 tons of waste for a 1,500 square foot house. A new house of that same size would use about 80 cubic yards of concrete and 20,000 board feet of new lumber, according to estimates of the carbon offset company 8 Billion Trees.
When you figure in all the energy used to extract, transport and process the resources in a new house, construction produces up to 13 times the carbon dioxide equivalent of a renovated structure, according to the Historic Environment Forum. In Blair County, the new building is usually in the environs, further contributing to suburban sprawl.
The savings are even greater for larger multifamily and commercial buildings, notes the U.S. Green Building Council, a strong advocate of repurposing old buildings. Concrete and steel have the highest embodied carbon dioxide equivalent of any common building material and are found in large amounts in such buildings.
Grand old buildings, with historically interesting backgrounds, are made in ways and with materials practically unavailable today. Saving them may bring the best transformation of all: turning the frowns of destruction into smiles of pride.
John Frederick (www.johnjfrederick.com) writes about environmental issues twice each month for the Mirror.