City demolishes former police station
The old building on Main Street in Pilot Point that was attached to City Hall has served many uses, City Manager Britt Lusk said.
“The building that was there before was a historical bank that was on the Square, and it had been repurposed to a City Hall at one point, to a police department,” he said.
With nearly two years of discussion and many efforts from city officials to save it, it is now being demolished because of risk factors and costly repairs.
“There’s significant water damage underneath the building from over a hundred years of not great engineered foundation,” said Tracy Glover from Conquest Design and Development Group, during the Oct. 9 City Council meeting.
Several changes over time to the building’s face contributed to the decision to demolish the building instead of renovating it.
“The building had no more historical integrity because the front facade had changed so many times, and it was tied to City Hall, so it was not on the historic registry,” Lusk said. “... Really, the best thing for us to do to be responsible with our funds was to demolish it and prepare for the future.”
Before demolition began, two safes were removed from the building.
The safes are from the original PointBank, back when it was built in 1892 and called the Pilot Point National Bank.
“We’re going to have them in the museum for a little while,” Lusk said. “Eventually, a remodel here would hopefully ... show what the history of this site was, because even though we’re going to have to kind of clean slate it and wipe it, we would still like to honor history.”
That could come in the form of incorporating historic photographs into whatever building eventually fills that corner, Lusk said, “and have kind of like a dedication to say this is from this to this and preserve our history somehow.”
Demolition started back in mid-October and is reaching the tail end.
During the Oct. 9 City Council meeting, the expected timeline for the demolition portion discussed was expected to wrap up in late January.
Once it’s completed, the next phase will begin, Lusk said, which is rebuilding the wall and creating an interim park for residents to enjoy.
“We value that historic space,” Lusk said. “It was never our first option was never to demolish it. We wanted to revitalize it. We wanted it to be a part of our living history. It just wasn’t feasible.”
The park will be there indefinitely until a decision is made on what to do with the land.
Lusk mentioned the possibility of using the land to create a larger city hall that could last the city through several decades.
So far, the topic has not been discussed fully, nor have plans been designed for a new building.
Lusk also called the demolition “a last resort.”
“We wanted to be good stewards of the tax dollars that the city uses,” Lusk said.
