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South Bend edevelopment Commission Regular Mee ing - December 4, 1981 9. NEXT COMMISSION MEETING (continued) Mr. McM hon: When the staff individually talked with some of Commission members, if there's something here that we haven't seen from Tom before or that we haven't before then, we should take time, look at it and give it time to go. But if it's just a repeat of the things we've gone through and the same stone walls that we've run into before, it sounds very good to say I think I can do it, but over two years we've had a number of people who couldn't do it that came to us with much stronger things that T. Brooks did, and there has been nothing changed in that regard. If the information was the same, and I b lieve it was, our recommendation was that the action remain that we take the building down, because there had beer no change in any information that had been sub- mitted. Mr. Don ldson: And I'd like to add this too. Two years ago, if it was left up to me, it would have gone down. I wanted to see it down then, but we were requested by the Mayor tc try to save it. That's the reason I went along with it then, but after two years, if he hasn't put a package together, I can't see him putting one togehter in threE months. Mr. Voo de: I publicly stated before that my bias was that the building ought to come down, and it's been that way for the last. three years when Pete wanted to bring it down. I thought that's probably the way to go. At that time I was working part time with Lawson - Fisher and, just informally over coffee, asked those guys, who .I respect as engineers, what do you think of the rehab of the Odd Fellows, and their o inion was, just off the top of their heads, was that they di n't think it could be done feasibly. The more people I talkec to, the more people said it ought to come down. Mr. Butler: And people who are experts, who do have ex- pertise who do know and have looked at it. Mr. Vooi don't wi been wr( hasn't t Thirty ) Odd Fel'. office k and as deterior i is not ever th' de: That's my predisposition. And, like I say, I nt to come here at the eleventh hour and say, "you've ng for the last three years," but any building that een attended to for fifty years is going to be bad. ears ago, you know, my father had an office in the ows Building, and it looked like all the other uildings in town. I am sure that it was as good erviceable and everything else - -it's just been let ate for thirty years. Plans for development downtown, been thirty years ago, too, don't way nobody was nking about doing anything downtown. Again, when I 42