The roof of the vacant house had collapsed months, if not years, ago.
And the subsequent water damage and mold, along with possible asbestos and lead paint, helped seal its fate.
The city-owned home at 1409 E. Broadway will be knocked down this week. Its demolition has spurred a new round of a feud that pits the city against neighbors and those dedicated to saving historic buildings along Broadway, a busy corridor that’s been earmarked for widening for years.
On Sunday night, former Tucson Councilwoman Margot Garcia joined with nearly two dozen community members at a candlelight vigil for the doomed structure.
She said the 1,973 square-foot home built sometime between 1920 and 1940 was fated to fall apart, with the city doing nothing to maintain the house since it purchased the property in 1999. A city report from 2008, she said, stated the home was in good condition and had no maintenance issues.
“Either they were lying on the report or it was in good condition,” Garcia said. “Here it is 2016, eight years later, and they are saying the roof is falling in, the beams are falling in, there is mold, there is asbestos . . . a litany of problems.”
The city attempted for years to rent out the property, but the amount of work required to make the building a habitable was simply too much of a barrier for the private market, said Beth Abramovitz, the Broadway project manager for the Tucson Department of Transportation.
According to one report, it could take up to $230,000 to bring the home up to code, Abramovitz said.
The building, in its current state, poses a safety hazard as there are reports of squatters living in the building.
The home does not meet the guidelines for historic preservation, says a report from Poster, Frost and Mirto, an architectural firm hired by the city to evaluate the property. The report noted, for example, that the original façade that faces Broadway was removed in 1967 during construction of an addition.
The house is set to be razed as part of the Broadway widening project.
Councilman Steve Kozachik acknowledged there are serious discussions ahead as more properties are slated to be demolished in the coming months and next year, but he said this particular property is relatively insignificant.
“Can the city be criticized for demolition by neglect? And can this whole property acquisition process be called flawed? Yes, and yes. But this isn’t the property to plant your flag of preservation on,” he said. “My concern is that by protesting every demolition, it will diminish the credibility of other, more defensible preservation arguments that are sure to be coming.”
For retired professor Mark Homan, who lives nearby, there are lessons to be learned from the destruction of the old house.
“The demolition of this structure this week can be seen as active demolition. That fact is that the city has owned this property for years and has let it become very run down. This demolition by neglect is not good public policy,” he said. “Prior to the demolition begun last week, the building may well have been preserved. It is too late now. We should make sure that we’ve learned from this incident and not allow things to become ‘too late’ again.”
The demolition of the house does not bode well for residents in the neighborhood, he added. As more buildings north of Broadway are taken down, the widening will bring in more noise and traffic.
“Families on 10th street, the bedrock street of Rincon Heights, are now talking about moving, reversing the effort to promote homeownership in the area. These homeowner properties will likely become rentals, destabilizing the neighborhood. I’ve seen that happen,” he said. “When I moved here in 1976 all homes on my Eighth Street were owner-occupied. Now only two are.”
