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New-Vegetable-1274 t1_iy1pnnz wrote

Worcester's downtown was once as bustling as Boston's and Denholms was the flag ship the city's department stores. Denholm's was in a class with Macy's in New York and Field's in Chicago. It was a store where the wealthy shopped and the rest of us window shopped. Fewer people remember those days and it's relevance has faded but it's still a sturdy structure and should be repurposed, it would make a great apartment building or student housing,

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HistoricalSecurity77 t1_iy3ejyp wrote

It really isn’t a great structure for a retrofit. Too many issues to bring it up to modern code.

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your_city_councilor OP t1_iy1x3ae wrote

I realize there's a storied history and it's sad that that part of Worcester's past is gone. But the building itself is fairly ugly.

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New-Vegetable-1274 t1_iy4bryx wrote

I agree but very often demolitions create bigger eyesores. Worcester was once home to many mills and factories that eventually were demolished. There are hundreds of acres of empty lots covered by crumbling concrete, weeds and debris in Worcester. There are some that have been rehabilitated, are clean but empty. The majority are forgotten and unfortunately many are brown fields and expensive to rehabilitate and with no advantage to do so they remain as they are. Downtown real estate in Worcester is not very desirable The Denholm building can't attract tenants, what would a vacant lot do?

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