Executive Director of SPAR Council "Comes Out"!

[02roadking]

Gee Gary, thanks for your input...

[fiatlux33]

  For starters does anyone have about $10,000?! That would be the first check written, that would have to clear to even start somthing. But, you are propossing what?! Louise you are an idiot!!!!

sounds like pot calling kettle black, this post is incomprehensible, perhaps its 5 O'clock somewhere? 

[sheclown]

yeah...we're all wondering about that.

[Springfield Girl]

I thought Gary was one of your guys. I thought he had posted this somewhere earlier when defending you and Joe.

[buckethead]

Namecalling aside, is it not the grand historic structures that make Springfield at all marketable? Is SPAR not an Historic PRESERVATION Organization?

I'm confused.

As far as "property rights nuts" I am one. Historic districts are what they are. People know what they are in for before they buy. (Not unlike HOA's in Suburbia)

Having spent two weeks on the road: One in Portland Maine, the other in Houston Texas, I choose Portland. Historic, quaint, walkable, beautiful.

Jacksonville seems to want to grow up to become Houston. Meandering, unsightly, massive, unlivable.

Springfield is so much more valuable in it's current state than so many short sighted people realize.

Just keep a roof and windows/coverings on the structures and time will heal their wounds through HISTORIC PRESERVATION. Demolition will be the downfall of Springfield and it's property values over the long haul.

[zoo]

Preservation of a structure is my first goal. But then it comes down to financial capability.

I took a building down after one engineer told me it couldn't be saved, and two told me it could. The two engineers who told me it could be saved failed to mention the cost of trying to do so would be more than if I rebuilt the entire building new, and that paying that cost still couldn't ensure the walls would stand during roof demolition.

I don't like looking at an empty lot in this district any more than anyone else, but I do like knowing a dilapidated structure, that would have sat as it was for awhile for cost reasons, is not attracting squatters pimping addicts or stripping electrical wire.

Though I may have been foolish to take on the structure I did, I know I'm not the first (or last) who found restoration costs beyond expectations.

You buy them and rehabilitate them.

20k a year for private security to protect you from the other residents?  Five years?

That would have been five more homes saved.

I would love to hear from all of the Springfield homeowners who were able to purchase and do complete rehabilitation to their historic homes for $20,000. If the average historic home in Springfield were 1500 sq ft (and most are larger), that would be a total cost of approx $13/sq ft! Please chime in on this thread, and tell us how you did it!

[fsu813]

Zoo,

you don't get it.

SPAR wants to demo any property with a broken window!

They have support demo left & right!

They are completed funded by developers!

They do nothing but divide the community!

They want to kick all poor people out!

You won't be allowed to let your cousin live with you!

The 2 properties mentioned in this email had no issues to support demo at all!

I saw horns and tails on some of the board members!

umm....right?

[zoo]

T. Boone Pickens?

[sheclown]

You know Zoo, I've probably bought and sold, or rented, 10 or more properties in the neighborhood over the past 11 years...

I gotta tell you...I may have turned a couple into sober houses, but I've never torn one down. 

[ChriswUfGator]

That e-mail represents an outright fukking SCANDAL

As I've suspected and stated all along (even when other forum members would argue incessantly that this wasn't the case) SPAR is a total and utter failure at its mission...which is PRESERVATION and RESTORATION.

What's worse, they are actively doing harm to that goal. Funny, I don't see the word DEMOLITION in their name.

They should be renamed "SPUD" for: "Springfield People acting Uppity and Demolishing"...

It's time they go the way of the dinosaur.

[sheclown]

Zoo...don't you live in a new SRG house?

[02roadking]

Can anyone give me the addresses of the properties in question. I want to go see for myself, what all this fuss is about. Please...

[sheclown]

Doug's house...the one on Market?  I used to own that.  Contractors would wee wee on themselves when they went in.  Eventually, Operation New Hope bought it and renovated, and look at what it is today!

We used to say, about the Market Street house, "good thing for the fire...it killed the termites."

Part of restoration work is finding the right people to do it.  Operation New Hope did. Along with a lot of others.  They didn't just throw up their hands and say it was too expensive.  And now, what a doll's house we have in the neighborhood.

[zoo]

I never tore a house down either.

Yes I live in a newer home, but it is IN Springfield.

SPAR stands for Springfield Preservation and Revitalization. (n: to give new life or vigor to)

[strider]

Ahh ... Zoo, it just seems to me that you announced through SPAR Council several times that you had hired a contractor (SRG) and were about to start the rehab of your building.  Normally, by the time you've hired a contractor and make those kinds of announcements, you have multiple bids and have worked with the architects and engineers and know all about that building and the vast majority of what it needs (there are always a few hidden things...).  It also appears, in this case, that you let everyone think it was going to be rehabbed and then when people thought equipment showed up to start, it got torn down.

I get it.  The costs were way too much for you to afford.  It happens.  No big deal.  But, it doesn't seem like you handled the situation very ... up front.  And I ask, who doesn't already know that it always costs more to rehab a historic building than build new?  Just the way it is.

You don't seem like the restoration poster child SPAR Council needs right now.

Oh, and just a bit of trivia....SPAR, Inc. stood for Springfield Preservation and Restoration, Inc.    SPAR Council, Inc. ( a different organization that is the merged HSCC and SPAR) stands for Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council.  There was a reason for the R change--something to do with the HSCC part of it I believe.

So, Zoo, you may have Sheclown on the Restoration part, but we all have you (and Louise) on the Preservation part.

And no, you didn’t tear down a house, but you still torn down a commercial building that was at the very least “historic” due to it’s unique history.  I often felt that the place may have been built as a strip club as you could “hide” your car around back.  I suppose that could have just been a convenient thing when the building was converted to a strip club.