Sometimes demolition most important part of development effort

If you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.

The same applies to economic development.

A story on page one today explains that McCook is among Nebraska cities sharing more than $1.6 million for neighborhood revitalization.

The purpose is to purchase, redevelop and rehabilitate foreclosed, abandoned and vacant properties that are already or are becoming uninhabitable to return safe and decent affordable housing units to the market.

In McCook, $625,000 for neighborhood stabilization will be used to demolish several homes and several commercial structures such as the Romanov Building at Norris and B, the old West Ward school and a building at West Third and A.

On one hand, we always favor rehabilitation and restoration of existing structures, whether a private home or the Keystone Hotel. Historic buildings are impossible to replace.

On the other, one has to face economic realities. It's just not fiscally feasible to rebuild some crumbling structures which also may be poorly designed for today's uses. New structures are easier to bring up to current building codes and energy efficiency standards.

Nor, probably would it make financial sense to spend a lot of man-hours salvaging materials from the structures to be demolished.

Still, it would be nice for scroungers to have a chance to salvage bricks from the West Ward and other buildings.