In what has been an ongoing spectacle for many driving or walking past downtown the last week, demolition crews have been hard at work tearing down the “old grey” building that has dominated the landscape between Division and Railroad streets for decades.

Since photos of the project last appeared in the Dowagiac Daily News Wednesday, the team with contractor Melching Inc. has continued to steadily bring down the remaining exterior walls of the former Goerlich building. At this point, nearly 80 percent of the structure lies in rubble, ready to be transported to be ground up into gravel the city can reuse for other projects.

While many in the city have rejoiced to finally see the old abandoned warehouse fall, others on social media have lamented seeing what has become a fixture of the greater downtown landscape come to such a sad end.

We can certainly understand and sympathize with the latter camp. There are a lot of memories people have of the building, be it of constantly driving past it on their way to work, playing underneath its giant visage as children or even knowing a family member who was once employed there.

The bitter truth, though, is that local leaders’ decision to demolish the Goerlich building was ultimately the right move.

Sitting vacant for around 20 years, attempting to redevelop the three-story warehouse would have been an extremely costly endeavor. And the prospect of finding a tenant to occupy a restored building would have been equally as daunting.

With the building falling into disrepair and a frequent target for vandalism and break-ins, simply having it sit there for another 20 years would also be an untenable solution.

As city leadership continues to move forward with improvements to the downtown area, a deteriorating old warehouse sitting near the entrance of the district would only continue to grow as a liability as the city works to overhaul the aesthetics of the area.

By investing the nearly $400,000 (most of which will be paid for via a grant from Michigan’s Blight Elimination Program) to have the warehouse torn down, the city chose the best — and only reasonable — solution at their disposal.

So, instead of lamenting the loss of what once was, we should instead look forward to what will be. With the Goerlich building gone, Dowagiac’s downtown will be more visible than ever to visitors traveling from the east, and the potential landscaping options for such a massive lot of land are tremendous.

While the Goerlich building was a sign of what Dowagiac was before, whatever springs up from its former lands can be a demonstration of what is to come from The Grand Old City.

 

Opinions expressed are those of the editorial board consisting of Publisher Michael Caldwell and editors Ambrosia Neldon, Craig Haupert, Ted Yoakum and Scott Novak.