Re: “Preserving Colorado’s landmarks,” Jan. 31 Tom Noel column, and “Justice plan unveiled,” Feb. 2 news story.
Is anyone else concerned about the upcoming demolition by the state of Colorado of two buildings that are no more than 30 years old, and that were probably thought of as “state of the art” when they were built? I refer to the Colorado History Museum and the Colorado Judicial Center, both located in the block bounded by Broadway and Lincoln streets and 13th and 14th avenues in downtown Denver.
While we congratulate ourselves on preserving our state’s landmarks and emphasizing “green” building practices, we turn around and tear down perfectly usable structures for which we paid millions of dollars and used significant amounts of energy (both fossil fuels and human energy) to build. I know that the Colorado Historical Society and the Colorado judicial system need more space — but is razing an entire city block and starting over the best solution we can come up with?
When all the costs of demolition and new construction are accounted for, new construction is not always the most cost-effective. First, there is the cost of the original construction, i.e., the architectural planning and engineering, the manufacture and transport of materials, the human labor, the fossil fuels — the “embodied energy” of an existing structure. Add to that the tremendous costs of demolition, for labor, fuel to run the machines that will knock the buildings down and take debris to a landfill, plus the environmental impacts of dust and exhaust fumes from machinery and vehicles for both the demolition and new construction. Some of the materials in this case will be recycled, but that will take energy, too.
There must be architects and planners out there who are smart enough to figure out effective, economical ways of re-purposing our existing structures instead of always solving our space and usage needs by destroying what we already have. Colorado needs to do better.
The buildings in question have contributed to our downtown landscape for some 30 years and are not exactly eyesores. Think of the thousands of Colorado schoolchildren who have enjoyed field trips to these sites and to the nearby Capitol building.
It’s not just “old” buildings that deserve to be saved. Please, let’s give some structures built within our lifetimes a chance to become landmarks and let us not continue our wasteful practices.
In the words of a Carl Elefante of Quinn-Evans Architects, who spoke at the recent Colorado Preservation Inc. conference on sustainability, “the greenest building is the one already built.”
Linda Hargrave lives in Denver.
