City workers were sent today to the Casa del Nylon on 13th and Adams streets to survey the structure where they found a collapsed section of aluminum awning apparently as a result of age and the recent high winds from a violent norther which struck the city.
The workers were looking for the aluminum trim which had apparently been blown off and fallen, but no one knew where it was. A passerby speculated that on of the many scrap iron and cardboard scavengers might have seen the piece of heavy aluminum and hauled it off to sell it.
The building has been vacant since the city bought it from local real-estate owner Abraham Galonsky and his partners for $2.3 million, an amount that was authorized and approved for the sale of $13 million in Certificates of Obligation by the city commission.The fact that Da Mayor Tony Martinez's law partner Horacio Barrera negotiated with the city on behalf of owner Galonsky - who happened to be his neighbor - gave the questions and complaints legs and validity.rapidly lost
The appraisal, which Martinez still defends, listed properties on Alton Gloor, the frontage road off U.S. 77-83, and even Wildrose Lane as "comparables," although the appraisal itself said the price reflected the proximity of the Gateway Bridge as its biggest value.
But being as it is, surrounded by vacant properties frequented by the city's burgeoning homeless population, that assertion loses credibility.
Some commissioners had complained that Martinez assured them that the University of Texas System was ready to plunk down good bucks to keep the University of Texas at Brownsville in the downtown area. Then, after the UTB administration said "thanks, but no thanks" the questions started in earnest.
Since then various purposes have been suggested for use of he building, including EMT training and firefighters, storage for city property, and lately, a so-called one-stop information center for city departments.
So far, nothing has panned out and now pieces of the building are falling on the sidewalk like window glass panes from the El Jardin Hotel, another eyesore couple of streets down.
Martinez is now running for reelection, but that Casa sale hangs around his neck like an albatross.