At 8 a.m. Sunday, Lindamood Demolition imploded the Medical District’s three historic Exchange Park buildings. The buildings were demolished to make way for a new pediatric campus.
We knew it was coming and that there would be no preservation knight in shining armor to save these buildings. Those of us who value historic preservation breathed a collective sigh of resignation, but when the implosion came Sunday morning, it still cut like a knife.
Oddly enough, it was also this morning when a dear reader commented on my original Exchange Park post.
As someone who was working in that building when it closed, it was time for that mold-infested rat’s nest to go. And for those weeping, because a state-of-the-art pediatric hospital is being built in your community in place of a useless, dilapidated relic, get a life.
Daltxrealestate Comment
We value all of our readers’ comments, but I think this one missed the point of my story. No one is saying a pediatric hospital is not a valued asset to our city. In fact, I said as much in my original post.
UTSW is building a state-of-the-art, cutting-edge pediatric cancer research center on the site, and no one can argue that this is not the highest and best use of the land.
The point is there was no effort made to be creative and save a significant piece of the architectural history of Dallas. It most certainly could have been done. But it would not have been convenient.
The Demolition of Exchange Park Was About Convenience. That’s it. Plain and Simple.
The decision to raze this site instead of looking into historic tax incentives for rehabilitation was a missed opportunity. Exchange Park was the state-of-the-art template for indoor malls and, in 1956, was considered to be an entirely new concept of a temperature-controlled environment for business, shopping, and dining.
So much history happened at this complex. It was home to Exchange Bank and Trust Company, Braniff Airlines, Frito Lay, and the exotic La Tunisia restaurant many remember today.
It’s not just the loss of history that is concerning. Social media went nuts this morning when what sounded like a sonic boom was heard as far away as Preston Hollow and the M Streets.
That was the “explosion” people were freaking out about on Ring & Nextdoor this morning. I heard it from my house in M Streets!
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Of course, UTSW did their due diligence to ensure minimal health impacts, screening for things like asbestos and lead paint, but there is no denying that there are still health risks with implosions.
Photo: Mimi Perez for daltxrealestate.com
Sure, this wasin a commercial area and organized on a Sunday to mitigate the impact on human beings. However, there are nearby service businesses that could certainly have been affected.
Also on social media Sunday morning:
A huge amount more dust and debris is going into the environment. A large fraction of landfill volume worldwide is taken up by discarded buildings. A premium should be put on re-using buildings, removing some of the incentive to destroy them. I propose extensive tax breaks for reuse and automatic LEED Platinum rating. The latter because of the immense amount of waste avoided and the material and embodied energy saved. Better architecture is simply a happy by-product.
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Photo: Mimi Perez for daltxrealestate.com
Keith Matheny, writing about the implosion of the Park Avenue Hotel for the Detroit Free Press in 2015, had the following to say to his readers:
Watching the hotel come down, particularly outside in the immediate area, will likely expose onlookers to severe — and potentially health-harming — air pollution, according to scientists who’ve studied the air quality impacts of building implosions.
“One of the bottom lines is the tremendous amounts of particulate matter generated from those events,” said Tim Buckley, a lead investigator on a 2003 study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
…
That study found the implosion of a 22-story building in Baltimore increased airborne dust particles by “And this was a very successful implosion; it went according to script,” Buckley said. “The meteorological conditions were quite favorable. There’s just no avoiding the kinds of dust plumes that result from these kinds of activities.”
The Detroit Free Press
Will Exchange Park End Up in The Landfill?
Then, we look at what happens to the remaining rubble. Demolition debris can, of course, be sorted and recycled, which takes time. Crushed concrete can be used for road bases, and steel can be recycled. Alternatively, all of this can end up in the landfill.
The lack of a creative approach to Exchange Park in an industry known for innovation and creativity is troubling to many of us. So, we lose another historically significant set of buildings, not in the name of progress, but for convenience.
