In my City Talk column for March 29, I talk again about Meldrim Row. (Click here for a post from June 2014 with more detailed background.) It’s absurd that the homes weren’t saved on the basis of their history, but soon other problems will become evident. The project to develop a 1.6+ acre Central Precinct site is just lousy urban planning that includes all the following elements:
- degradation of residential character and density
- street closure(s)
- overly large off-street surface parking
- forbidding frontages on two significant streets — Montgomery Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard
- lack of vehicular access to southbound MLK
Anyway, I took a few photos of the demolition in progress one night last week.
The next photo is of the one home slated for preservation. However, as I note in my column, the row that includes this house was originally conceived as the location for a reconfigured 34th Street.
Some incompetent person with the city claimed that the home would cost close to $300 per square foot to renovate, but the Historic Savannah Foundation said that it would only cost about half as much. It’s lovely:
And here’s just an extra photo of a wonderful little house — feels very New Orleans to me — across MLK. It’s for sale.
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